Doing Cultural Theory
- David Walton - University of Murcia, Spain
Doing Cultural Theory is a textbook and a toolkit that teaches the basics of cultural theory, unpacks its complexities with real-life examples, and shows readers how to link theory and practice.
Key Features
- Offers accessible introductions to how cultural studies has engaged with key theories in structuralism, poststructuralism and postmodernism
- Teaches straightforward ways of practicing these theories so students learn to think for themselves
- Uses 'Practice' boxes to show students how to apply cultural theory in the real world
- Guides students through the literature with carefully selected further reading recommendations
Other textbooks only show how others have analyzed and interpreted the world. Doing Cultural Theory takes it a step further and teaches students step-by-step how to do cultural theory for themselves.
Doing Cultural Theory will be a very useful tool for any student trying to make sense of the vast expanses of contemporary cultural theory and criticism. Well-written and admirably self-reflective, it combines rigorous explications and applications of many of the most influential concepts and theorists
Lawrence Grossberg
The University of North Carolina
Accessible and insightful throughout; offering help to both experienced and inexperienced students of cultural theory. Highly recommended
John Storey
The University of Sunderland
The greatest strength of David Walton’s book is that it systematically engages with these difficult theories...it is a serious attempt to ‘translate’ the main concepts of French Cultural Theory for an Anglo-Saxon readership.
David Walton offers an excellent introduction to the history of cultural studies as well as of its key theories such as structuralism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis and discourse analysis. Each chapter is self-contained so that it is very convenient to excerpts in class. Teaching "Introduction to Cultural Studies", I very much appreciate Walton's pragmatic approach to theoretical concepts. The way he exemplifies abstract ideas is perfect for first- and second-year students of cultural studies.
This book helped me a lot in teaching cultural studies and I can only recommend it to students and instructors alike.
A comprehensive and well-balanced text that brings valuable insights in different aspect of cultural theory.
Teachers who know this work will not be surprised to read that I am recommending it to our MA students – and to some of our final year BA students – because it is, as others have said, a tool-kit as well as a textbook. Walton is committed to helping students mature in learning how to integrate theory and praxis, and this comes through clearly. He provides excellent introductions to engagement with structuralism, poststructuralism and postmodernism, and his goal is always to help students to think and evaluate for themselves. The many 'Practice' boxes, taking students directly into the issues around applying cultural theory, are also a great teaching aid for class sessions.
A fantastic introduction to cultural theory and its application to research. The author uses current explames to illustrate the points and introduces theory in an esy to grasp manner. It covers all the major theories that one would need to know when engaging in cultural studies
Too specific for my applied social science students
This book will be recommended not only to our fourth year post-graduate students, but also to our MA and PhD students. It is ideal for any student/scholar who is doing application-based work/research in both mass communication studies and cultural studies. The emphasis, as the title clearly states, is on DOING, and is a practical guide to applying difficult concepts such as phenomenology, to application. A wonderful find.
Great text with some relevance to current teaching.
Sage College Publishing
