Arthur Asa Berger's unique ability to translate difficult theories into accessible language makes this book an ideal introduction to cultural criticism. Berger covers the key theorists, concepts, and subject areas, from literary, sociological and psychoanalytical theories to semiotics and Marxism. Cultural Criticism breathes new life into the discipline by making these theories relevant to students' lives. The author illustrates his explanations with excerpts from classic works giving readers a sense of the important thinkers' styles and helping place them in their context. Berger also provides a comprehensive bibliography on cultural criticism for those who wish to explore the topics at greater length. Cultural Criticism is the perfect undergraduate supplemental text for such courses as media studies, literary criticism, and popular culture.

"These essays address such key topics in the cultural, political, and intellectual life of our time as the tyranny of exercise, the tyranny of nutrition and food snobbery, the sexualization of childhood (and everything else), the philosophical meaning of Radiohead, the rise and fall of the hipster, the impact of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the crisis of policing. Four of the selections address, directly and unironically, the meaning of life what might be the right philosophical stance to adopt toward one's self and the world." -- Amazon.com.

Leitch argues for the use of poststructural theory in cultural criticism. He maintains that deconstruction remains crucial for a truly critical approach to cultural studies.

This book addresses a topic in journalism studies that has gained increasing scholarly attention since the mid-2000s: the coverage and evaluation of arts and culture, or what we term ‘cultural journalism and cultural critique’. The book highlights three approaches to this emerging research field: (1) the constant challenge of demarcating what constitutes the ‘cultural’ in cultural journalism and cultural critique, and the interlinks of cultural journalism and cultural critique; (2) the dialectic of globalization’s cultural homogenization and the specificity of local/national cultures; and (3) the need to rethink, perhaps even redefine, cultural journalism and cultural critique in view of the digital media landscape. ‘Cultural journalism’ is used as an umbrella term for media reporting and debating on culture, including the arts, value politics, popular culture, the culture industries, and entertainment. Therefore some of the contributions this book apply a broad approach to ‘the cultural’ when theorizing and analyzing the production and content of cultural journalism, and the professional ideology, self-perception, and legitimacy struggles of cultural journalists and editors. Other contributions demarcate their field of study more narrowly, both topically and generically, by engaging with very specific sub-areas such as ‘film criticism’ or ‘television series.’ This book was originally published as a special issue of Journalism Practice.

More than 450 succinct entries from A to Z help readers make sense of the interdisciplinary knowledge of cultural criticism that includes film, psychoanalytic, deconstructive, poststructuralist, and postmodernist theory as well as philosophy, media studies, linguistics.

In Homegrown, cultural critics bell hooks and Amalia Mesa-Bains reflect on the innate solidarity between Black and Latino culture. Riffing on everything from home and family to multiculturalism and the mass media, hooks and Mesa-Bains invite readers to re-examine and confront the polarizing mainstream discourse about Black-Latino relationships that is too often negative in its emphasis on political splits between people of color. A work of activism through dialogue, Homegrown is a declaration of solidarity that rings true even ten years after its first publication. This new edition includes a new afterword, in which Mesa-Bains reflects on the changes, conflicts, and criticisms of the last decade.

'Secularization and Cultural Criticism' examines the responses of a wide range of thinkers to illustrate exactly why the problem of secularisation in the study of society and culture should matter once again.