The Cultural Turn

Scene Setting Essays on Contemporary Cultural History

In the second half of the twentieth century the theme of culture has dominated the human sciences. The forms of contemporary culture demand a radical reappraisal of the terms of description of the modern world. We therefore need to consider our options when culture does not just provide the meaning of experience but is also the terms of that experience. This book reviews these ideas in ways that will be accessible to those new to the field and also stimulating to experts. The three parts of the book: * Review the character and lessons of this "turn to culture" in a number of academic fields. The author demonstrates the socio-intellectual context within which these themes have been generated and documents the main strengths of the paradigm shift. * Explore key themes in contemporary culture. By showing how questions of citizenship and the meaning of places have been colonized under the remit of the culturalist paradigm, a cluster of associated ideas and themes implicit in the paradigm are explicitly tackled. * Examine some of the ways in whcih cultural forms are increasingly seen to dominate social reality. The final chapter explores triumphant culturalism - the postmodern world as the apogee of the turn to culture.