Cultural Theory

This second edition of Cultural Theory provides a concise introduction to cultural theory, placing major figures, traditional concepts, and contemporary themes within a sharp conceptual framework.

• Provides a student-friendly introduction to what can often be a complex field of study
• Updates the first edition in response to reader feedback and to the changing nature of the field
• Includes additional coverage of theorists from the classical period to include Nietzsche and DuBois
• Introduces entirely new chapters on race and gender theory, and the body
• Considers themes that have become more important in theoretical activity in recent years such as computers and virtual reality, cosmopolitanism, and performance theory
• Draws on theories and theorists from continental Europe as well as the English-speaking world

Preface to the First Edition: About this Book vi

Preface to the Second Edition ix

Acknowledgments x

Introduction: What is Culture? What is Cultural Theory? 1

1 Culture in Classical Social Theory 6

2 Culture and Social Integration in the Work of Talcott Parsons 26

3 Culture as Ideology in Western Marxism 34

4 Culture as Action in Symbolic Interactionism, Phenomenology, and Ethnomethodology 54

5 The Durkheimians: Ritual, Classification, and the Sacred 69

6 Structuralism and the Semiotic Analysis of Culture 92

7 The Poststructural Turn 111

8 Culture, Structure, and Agency: Three Attempts at Synthesis 128

9 British Cultural Studies 144

10 The Production and Reception of Culture 158

11 Culture as Text: Narrative and Hermeneutics 176

12 Psychoanalytic Approaches to Culture and the Self 195

13 The Cultural Analysis of Postmodernism and Postmodernity 207

14 Postmodern and Poststructural Critical Theory 228

15 Cultural Theories of Race and Gender 241

16 The Body in Cultural Theory 262

References 280

Index 296

"Highly recommended to anyone interested in acquiring a theoretical basis on which to systematize their knowledge of cultural theory. Indeed, the authors manage to make the complex simple enough to understand without oversimplifying." (Discourse Studies, 2010)

"Presenting such a wide-ranging and multifarious set of ideas in a coherent manner constitutes a very considerable achievement. The book offers anyone interested in cultural theory a broad conspectus—provided of course it is read as a whole." (Metapsychology Online Reviews, February 2009)

Philip Smith is Associate Professor of Sociology at Yale University and Deputy Director of the Yale Center for Cultural Sociology. His books include Cultural Theory: An Introduction (Blackwell, 2001), Why War? The Cultural Logic of Iraq, the Gulf War and Suez (2005), The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim (with Jeffrey C. Alexander) (2005), and Punishment and Culture (2008).

Alexander Riley is Associate Professor of Sociology at Bucknell University. He is the author of Godless Intellectuals?: How Durkheimian Sociology and Poststructuralism Reinvented the Intellectual Pursuit of the Sacred (2008).

This second edition of the renowned Cultural Theory provides a systematic and accessible introduction to cultural theory, encapsulating a usually complex field in a concise and balanced overview.

This fully revised and expanded second edition provides a comprehensive tour of the major figures, themes, and debates in cultural theory, from Durkheim and Weber through to Foucault and Butler, and from charisma to consumption, but also introduces entirely new chapters on race and gender theory, and the body. Other new material includes treatments of thinkers such as Nietzsche, DuBois, and Eagleton, and considers important contemporary themes, including virtual reality and cosmopolitanism.

Internationally respected by students and teachers alike, the first edition of Cultural Theory has been translated into several languages and became legendary on campuses worldwide. This new, restructured edition, packed with special features for students and accompanied by a website, promises to be the most authoritative text of its kind.

"For those stalking culture, you'd best set out with this mapping of the terrain."
—Roger Friedland, University of California, Santa Barbara

"The second edition of Cultural Theory provides a clear, lively, and timely introduction to leading thinkers and their ideas. Its lucid writing and comprehensive scope is of great value to students and scholars seeking to understand the field of cultural theory."
—Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Swarthmore College

"Bringing alive a subject as broad as cultural sociology is difficult, but this fresh edition succeeds brilliantly. Books about theory are usually less than exciting, let alone inspiring, but this book glows and absorbs as it informs. I have depended on it for years, cannot do without it, and, given the growth of cultural theory, I cannot see how anyone else can."
—Barry Schwartz, University of Georgia