What S Become Of Australian Cultural Studies

Cultural studies face a complicated yet rich future, proving both flexible and resilient in many countries. Against this backdrop, this book offers a fresh perspective on the state of the field of cultural studies, via an evaluation of the work of one of its key thinkers – Graeme Turner – and the traditions of Australian cultural studies which have been influential on the formation of the field. Thinking with Turner, and being informed by his practice, can help orient us in the face of new challenges and contexts across culture, media, and everyday life; teaching and pedagogy; the relation of research to the new politics of public engagement, policy, management, and universities; the internationalization of cultural studies and the reconfiguration of nationalism; the changing concepts and relations of culture; the development of important new areas in cultural studies, such as celebrity studies; and the emergence of digital media studies. This lively and provocative volume is essential reading for anyone interested in where cultural studies has come from, where it’s heading to, and what kinds of ideas – not least from Graeme Turner – will help scholars and students alike make sense of and reconfigure the discipline. This book was originally published as a special issue of Cultural Studies.

Cultural studies has emerged as a major force in the analysis of cultural systems and their relation to social power. "Rather than being interested in television or architecture or pinball machines themselves - as industrial or aesthetic structures - cultural studies tends to be interested in the way such apparatuses work as points of concentration of social meaning, as 'media' (literally)", according to John Frow and Meaghan Morris. Here, two of Australia's leading cultural critics bring together work that represents a distinctive national tradition, moving between high theory and detailed readings of localized cultural practices. Ethnographic audience research, cultural policy studies, popular consumption, "bad" aboriginal art, landscape in feature films, style, form and history in TV miniseries, and the intersections of tourism with history and memory - these are among the topics addressed in a landmark volume that cuts across myriad traditional disciplines.

Nation, Culture, Text: Australian Cultural and Media Studies is the first collection of cultural studies from Australia, selected and introduced for an international readership. Participating in the `de-centring' of cultural studies - considering what perspectives other than the European and the American have to offer - the contributors raise important issues about the role of a national tradition of critical theory, and about the cultural specificity of theory itself. A key theme is the place of the postcolonial nation within contemporary cultural theory - particularly those aspects of contemporary theory which see the category of contemporary theory which see the category of the nation as either outdated or suspect. The writers tackle subjects ranging from the televising of the Bicentennial to the role of policy in film, television and the heritage industry, from the use of video technologies with remote Aboriginal communities to the role of ethnography in cultural studies.

"Graeme Turner is one of the most remarkable figures in the world of cultural studies. He has helped to make and remake the field over the last twenty-five years. So when he sets his alarm clock - and it goes off loudly - we all know it′s time to pay attention. This extraordinary testament to what is right and wrong with cultural studies today will reverberate across the globe." Toby Miller, University of California This original, sharp and engaging book draws the reader into a compelling exploration of cultural studies in the twenty-first century. It offers a level-headed account of where cultural studies has come from, the methodological and theoretical dilemmas that it faces today and an agenda for its future development. In an age in which the relevance of cultural studies has been called into question, this book seeks to generate debate. Focusing upon the actual practice of cultural studies within the university today, it asks whether or not cultural studies has really managed to maintain a connection with its original political and ethical mission and comments on the strategies needed to regain the initiative. Written by a world class figure in cultural studies, each chapter supports and guides the reader by introducing the key issues, reviewing the relevant commentary and offering a critical conclusion of how each theme fits into a bigger picture. This timely and provocative consideration of cultural studies as a global discipline will be essential reading for academics and students working in the field for years to come.

Too often, cultural leaders and policy makers want to chase the perfect metric for activities whose real worth lies in our own personal experience. The major problem facing Australian culture today is demonstrating its value - to governments, the business sector, and the public in general. When did culture become a number? When did the books, paintings, poems, plays, songs, films, games, art installations, clothes, and the objects that fill our daily lives become a matter of statistical measurement? When did experience become data? This book intervenes in an important debate about the public value of culture that has become stranded between the hard heads (where the arts are just another industry) and the soft hearts (for whom they are too precious to bear dispassionate analysis). It argues that our concept of value has been distorted and dismembered by political forces and methodological confusions, and this has a dire effect on the way we assess culture. Proceeding via concrete examples, it explores the major tensions in contemporary evaluation strategies, and puts forward practical solutions to the current metric madness. The time is ripe to find a better way to value our culture - by finding a better way to talk about it.

The October 2008 Cultural Studies Review is a special issue focusing on cultures of panic, particularly recent examples of moral panic arising from issues of race, gender and sexuality. The diverse essays deal with 'men of Middle Eastern appearance', the trial of Private Kovko, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the use of Ritalin, concerns around children and sexuality in Australia, and arts funding in the United States during the 'culture wars'. The moral panic has centrally to do with the behaviour of crowds, particularly the virtual crowds created by the mass media. It's a mechanism of expulsion, and thus at the same time of group solidarity. It's also a particularly powerful genre of the tabloid media: in its identification and shaming of deviant social groups it rigidly defines and reinforces moral norms, and is complicit with political strategies of consolidation and othering which create and depend on a sense of horror at refugees who wilfully throw their children overboard or push in to the front of the 'queue', at paedophiles grooming children over the internet, at drug-crazed criminals and bingeing teenagers... The challenge is to move beyond the realisation that moral panics are not rationally constructed to an analysis of the passional bases of the social order, and to an understanding of how our politics might deal with this without itself falling into the contagion of panic. The diverse collection of essays gathered together in this edition takes up that challenge.

An ideal introduction, explaining the history and key concerns of cultural studies