Theorizing Culture: An Interdisciplinary Critique after Postmodernism

288 Pages·1995·2.188 MB·English

by  Barbara Adam, Stuart Allan

TheorizingCulture

Theorizing Culture
Aninterdisciplinarycritique
afterpostmodernism
Editedby
BarbaraAdam
UniversityofWales,Cardiff
StuartAllan
UniversityofGlamorgan
© Barbara Adam, Stuart Allan and contributors 1995
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
First published in 1995 by UCL Press
UCL Press Limited
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
The name of University College London (UCL) is a registered trade mark used by
UCL Press with the consent of the owner.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBNs:
1-85728-328-7 HB
1-85728-329-5 PB
ISBN 0-203-13701-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-18579-X (Glassbook Format)
Cover illustration: JULY 30: 1988 © Patrick Heron. All rights reserved DACS.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Contributors ix
Theorizing culture: an introduction xiii
Barbara Adam and Stuart Allan
Part I: Truth, reality and cultural critique 1
1 Culture, criticism and communal values: on the ethics
of enquiry 5
Christopher Norris
2 Realism and its discontents: on the crisis of cultural
representation in ethnographic texts 41
Paul Atkinson and Amanda Coffey
3 Reflexivity in academic culture 58
Simon Hopper
4 Theorizing the body’s fictions 70
Jane Moore
5 Culture, subjectivity and the real; or, psychoanalysis reading
postmodernity 87
Fred Botting
6 Adorno, Oakeshott and the voice of poetry 100
Andrew Edgar and Peter Sedgwick
7 Representing AIDS: the textual politics of health discourse 113
Karen Atkinson and Rob Middlehurst
8 News, truth and postmodernity: unravelling the will to facticity 129
Stuart Allan
v
CONTENTS
Part II: Recasting cultural politics 145
9 The celebration of difference and the cultural politics of racism 149
Glenn Jordan and Chris Weedon
10 Cultural studies, the university and the question of borders 165
Taieb Belghazi
11 Changing the culture of cultural studies 174
Brian Doyle
12 Nuclear family fall-out: postmodern family culture and
the media 186
Cynthia Carter
13 Remembering the future: the cultural study of memory 201
Timothy Robins
14 Imagining Nature: (re)constructions of the English countryside 214
Samantha Humphreys
15 Tyrell’s Owl: the limits of the technological imagination in an
epoch of hyperbolic discourse 225
Brian Winston
16 Technological reality: cultured technology and
technologized culture 236
Hughie Mackay
17 The temporal landscape of global/izing culture and the
paradox of postmodern futures 249
Barbara Adam
Index 263
vi
Acknowledgements
We would both like to express our gratitude to the School of Social and
Administrative Studies, UWCC, for its financial support with respect to the
preparationofthemanuscriptinitsfinalversion.Wewouldfurtherliketothank
SimonHopperforstandardizingthechaptersintotherequiredcomputerformat,and
AnneMableforhercarefulcopy-editingofthetext.
Finally,wealsotakepleasureinacknowledgingtheenthusiasticsupportofJustin
Vaughan,SeniorEditoratUCLPress.
BarbaraAdamandStuartAllan
Wales,1995
vii

Contributors
BarbaraAdamteachessocialtheoryandwomen’sstudiesattheUniversityofWales,
Cardiff.Shehaswrittennumerouspapersandtwobooks(Timeandsocialtheoryand
Timewatch.Thesocialanalysisoftime)onsocialtime,isthefoundereditorofTime
andSocietyandcurrentlyanESRCFellowundertheGlobalEnvironmentalChange
programme.
StuartAllanlecturesonmediaandculturalstudiesattheUniversityofGlamorgan.
Hehaspublishedintheareasofmediasociology,criticaldiscourseanalysisandthe
culturaldynamicsofnuclearism.In1993hejoinedthejournalTimeandSocietyas
AssistantEditor.HeiscurrentlyengagedinresearchontheWelshnewsmedia.
KarenAtkinsonisalecturerinlanguagestudiesattheUniversityofGlamorgan.Prior
to1992,she taught sociolinguistics atRoehamptonInstitute inLondon. She has
publishedonintergenerationalcommunication,onthe“co-operativity”ofall-female
discourse,andonofficialdiscoursesofpublichealth.Currentlysheisworkingona
bookaboutlanguage,womenandoldage.
PaulAtkinsonisProfessorofSociologyattheUniversityofWales,Cardiff.Hehas
publishedextensivelyonmedicine,education,andqualitativeresearchmethods.His
recent books include Fighting familiarity (with Sara Delamont), published by
HamptonPress,Medicalworkandmedical talk and Varieties of qualitative data
analysis(withAmandaCoffey),bothpublishedbySage,andMicrocomputingand
qualitativedataanalysis(withAnnaWeaver),publishedbyAvebury.
TaiebBelghaziisalecturerinEnglishattheFacultyofLettersinRabat,Morocco.He
completedhisPh.D.attheCentreforCriticalandCulturalTheoryinCardiff,Wales,
onTimeandpostmodernism.Hehaswrittenandtranslatedanumberofarticleson
ix