Title: Cultural theory : an introduction /
Authors: Smith, Philip 1964-
Publisher: Blackwell,
Year: 2001
Subjects: Culture.; Culture Philosophy
Abstract: "Cultural Theory: An Introduction is a concise, accessible introduction to a complex field. Philip Smith provides a balanced, wide-ranging overview of contemporary cultural theory, covering the major thinkers and key concepts that have appeared and developed over the last century. Assuming no specialist knowledge on the part of the reader, Smith deals with some of the most sophisticated issues in contemporary social thought. Coverage includes fields such as symbolic interactionism, structuralism, and psychoanalysis, and leading thinkers like Foucault, Bourdieu, Habermas, Giddens. The book has an abundance of special features for students, with summaries, biographical notes, suggestions for further reading, and extensive cross-referencing. For any student or scholar with an interest in the theoretical study of culture and society, this book is an ideal guide."--Jacket.
Contents: Introduction: What is culture? What is cultural theory? -- Culture in classical social theory -- Culture and social integration in the work of Talcott Parsons -- Culture as ideology in western Marxism -- Culture as action in symbolic interactionism, phenomenology, and ethnomethodology -- The Durkheimians: ritual, classification, and the sacred -- Structuralism and the semiotic analysis of culture -- The poststructural turn -- Culture, structure, and agency: three attempts at synthesis -- British cultural studies -- The production and reception of culture -- Culture as text: narrative and hermeneutics -- Psychoanalytic approaches to culture and the self -- The cultural analysis of postmodernism and postmodernity -- Postmodern and poststructural critical theory.