The Renewal of Cultural Studies

"Paul Smith is one of the foremost practitioners of cultural studies. Here he has gathered people together to go beyond the old question - 'What is cultural studies?' The outcome is a bold intervention into the human sciences that offers a radical rethinking of where we stand today." Toby Miller, author of Makeover Nation: The United States of Reinvention "Comprising 27 original contributions, this collection represents several ways of practicing cultural studies and argues for increased attention to selected approaches, methods, and theories. Smith contributes the most readable and teachable pieces in the book: an introduction and an interview with American studies scholar Andrew Ross. Smith confronts difficulties that beset cultural studies, a field haunted by 'a residual desire for some form of political efficacy'--a desire it can neither fulfill nor disavow...[This is] a text that will matter. Summing Up: Recommended." Choice, April 2012 "...The Renewal of Cultural Studies, an anthology of position 'papers' edited by Paul Smith. Each of the twenty five essays is short enough to read over breakfast and I imagine them being used by academics as early morning callisthenic exercises or performance enhancement supplements: you can use them to sharpen your sense of your own position (through agreements and disagreements); to find new ones; or simply to relish the arguments that matter to others." - New Formations, 2013