Culture/Metaculture is a stimulating introduction to the meanings of 'culture' in contemporary Western society. This essential survey examines:
* culture as an antidote to 'mass' modernity, in the work of Thomas Mann, Julien Benda, José Ortega y Gasset, Karl Mannheim and F. R. Leavis
* changing views of the term in the work of Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, T. S. Eliot and Richard Hoggart
* post-war theories of 'popular' culture and the rise of Cultural Studies, paying particular attention to the key figures of Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall
* theories of 'metaculture', or the ways in which culture, however defined, speaks of itself.
Francis Mulhern's interdisciplinary approach allows him to draw out the fascinating links between key political issues and the changing definitions of culture. The result is an unrivalled introduction to a concept at the heart of contemporary critical thought.
Biography
Francis Mulhern is Professor of Critical Studies at the University of Middlesex. He is author of The Moment of Scrutiny (1979) and The Present Lasts a Long Time (1998).
'This book is both informative and illuminating in the ways in which it explores the changing definitions of 'culture'.' - Angela Werndly, Years Work in Critical Cultural Theory
