Cultural Studies for Troubling Times. A Multimodal Introduction to British and American Cultures

“Culture is a contested terrain – that is the starting point of Cultural Studies.”

Did you ever wonder how Irish people ended up on Barbados? Or how Black Detroit danced to Kraftwerk? Or why there are no statues of women on Trafalgar Square? And what all this has to do with the economy and politics of culture?

“Cultural Studies can provide a platform to engage in the struggle over the protection of nature, the nursing of real democracy and the prevention of violence. It can show that there are alternatives to the present articulations of power that are worth fighting for.”

In the form of eleven short texts accompanied by eleven educational videos, this multimodal e-book introduces basic terms and central theoretical approaches within Cultural Studies to students from various disciplines, but even more so to everyone interested in questions of cultural identity, media materialities, representation, popular culture and cultural memory. Additionally, we provide a first insight into the cultural history of the anglophone world. Each chapter also contains a selected bibliography for further reading. This publication aims to enable its readers to understand the culture we live just a little bit better, and to transform it.