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POPULAR CULTURE
(CULTURAL STUDIES)
Popular (or
pop or
'low') culture,
literally 'the culture of the people,' consists of those
elements not normally valued as part of so-called 'high'
culture but which prevail, at least numerically, in any
given society. Expressed more often than not in that
society's vernacular language and / or an established lingua
franca, popular culture is thought to encompass any number
of mundane day to day practices (the ways people do specific
everyday things such as cooking, eating, watching
television, etc.) and objects (e.g. clothing, comic books,
romance novels, the various mass media [cinema, television,
the Internet, etc.], popular entertainment [such as gaming,
sports, Hollywood], etc.). These are most often
interpreted as if they constitute 'texts' of various kinds
and treated as ideological products inseparable from
questions of class, gender and / or race. Though
popular culture is often contrasted with a more exclusive,
even elitist 'high culture' (e.g. the poetry of Milton or
the drama of Shakespeare), the barriers often assumed to
separate them have in recent times broken down, accompanied
by an explosion of scholarly interest in popular culture.
Cultural Studies (or, perhaps more accurately,
Popular Culture Studies) is the academic
discipline concerned with interpreting the
meaning of the various cultural practices and objects that
comprise everyday life.
Cultural studies researchers often study the relationship
between particular phenomena and matters of ideology, race,
social class, and/or gender. The term 'cultural
studies' also sometimes serves as a
synonym for 'area studies,' that is, the academic study
of particular cultures such as
Islamic studies, Asian studies, African American studies,
African studies, Caribbean studies, German studies, etc.
SUB-PAGES
Philosophers / Theorists:
Topics:
Feminist:
Post-colonial:
ASSOCIATIONS
CONFERENCES
2008:
2007:
2006:
2005:
-
Sonic
Interventions: Pushing the Boundaries of Cultural Analysis,
Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam, March 29-31
- Making
Use of Culture, Inaugural Conference of the Cultural Theory
Institute, University of Manchester, January 21-23
2004:
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Cooking
Culture: Food and Consumption in the Nineteenth Century,
Institute of English Studies, Senate House, London, July 29-30
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Fifth
Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference, Association
for Cultural Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, June 25-28
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Globalisation, Americanisation and Popular Culture,
Second Annual Culture and Media Studies Conference, University of Bahcesehir,
Turkey, May 20-22
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Annual Conference, National PCA-ACA,
San Antonio, April 7-10
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Philosophy
and the Interpretation of Popular Culture, Center for Tomorrow,
State University of New York, Buffalo, April 2-3
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Culturepoles:
City Spaces, Urban Politics and Metropolitan Theory, Second
Annual Conference, Canadian Association of Cultural Studies, Hamilton,
February 13-15
2003:
2002:
2001:
2000:
Annual:
COURSES
JOURNALS
SOURCES: PRIMARY Off-Line:
On-Line:
SOURCES: SECONDARY
Off-Line:
On-Line:
UNIVERSITY PROGRAMMES / RESEARCH CENTRES / RESEARCH
PROJECTS
General:
Africa:
-
Kenya:
- Moi University: Department of Cultural Studies (no
link provided)
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South Africa:
Asia:
Australasia:
Canada:
Europe:
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Bulgaria:
- Czech Republic:
- Denmark:
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France / Germany:
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Hungary:
- Netherlands:
- Switzerland:
- UK:
Middle East:
USA:
WWW GATEWAYS
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This site will always be a work in progress
as a result of which pages will be found at various stages of
completion.