Themes in Cultural Studies

Some of these terms are described further in Dani Cavallaro,Critical and Cultural Theory. London: Athlone Press, 2001.

For the assignment:

Choose one of these terms, and use it as a focal point or lens to analyze some aspect of contemporary culture. What you analyze could be an event, a publication or production, an example of art, a piece of technology, or many other things. The object of this exercise is to bring insight and clarity to that example of culture, to understand how it means, and also to understand how it relates to other possible ways of meaning.


  1. Language and Interpretation
    1. Meaning
    2. Rhetoric
    3. Representation
      1. Production of Culture
      2. Reception of Culture
      3. Signs
    4. Texts and readers
    5. Visuality and Culture: The Gaze

  2. The Nature of Cultural Knowledge
    1. Materialism and non-reductionism (Marx)
    2. Power (Nietzsche, Foucault)
    3. Desire (Freud, Lacan)
    4. Popular culture
    5. Modern vs. Postmodern Culture
    6. The Aesthetic
    7. Space & Place
    8. Time
    9. The Machine
    10. The Simulacrum
  3. Social Identities
    1. Subjectivity
    2. Ideology
    3. Race
    4. Class
    5. Gender
    6. Age
    7. (dis)Ability
    8. Sexual Orientation
    9. The Body
    10. The Other