Jim McGuigan – författare

This lively and stimulating resource book for students of cultural studies traces the formation of the field in Britain and its subsequent development internationally. Classic statements of culturalist, semiological and postmodernist perspectives are contrasted with less familiar material illustrating the impact of feminism and the politics of sexuality, ethnicity and race. This second, greatly expanded edition includes a new section exploring recent important work in international cultural studies, and provides key readings on the social construction of the self and the role of public policy in the cultural field.

First Published in 2004. This book provides a novel understanding of current thought and enquiry in the study of popular culture and communications media. The populist sentiments and impulses underlying cultural studies and its postmodernist variants are explored and criticized sympathetically. An exclusively consumptionist trend of analysis is identified and shown to be an unsatisfactory means of accounting for the complex material conditions and mediations that shape ordinary people’s pleasures and opportunities for personal and political expression. Through detailed consideration of the work of Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall and ‘the Birmingham School’, John Fiske, youth subcultural analysis, popular television study, and issues generally concerned with public communication (including advertising, arts and broadcasting policies, children’s television, tabloid journalism, feminism and pornography, the Rushdie affair, and the collapse of communism), Jim McGuigan sets out a distinctive case for recovering critical analysis of popular culture in a rapidly changing, conflict-ridden world. The book is an accessible introduction to past and present debates for undergraduate students, and it poses some challenging theses for postgraduate students, researchers and lecturers.

Jim McGuigan discusses cultural policy as a manifestation of cultural politics in the widest sense. Illustrating his case with examples from recent cultural policy initiatives in Britain, the United States and Australia, he looks at:* The rise of market reasoning in arts administration* Urban regeneration and the arts* Heritage tourism* Race, identity and cultural citizenship* Censorship and moral regulation* The role of computer-mediated communication in democratic discourse

Jim McGuigan discusses cultural policy as a manifestation of cultural politics in the widest sense. Illustrating his case with examples from recent cultural policy initiatives in Britain, the United States and Australia, he looks at:* The rise of market reasoning in arts administration* Urban regeneration and the arts* Heritage tourism* Race, identity and cultural citizenship* Censorship and moral regulation* The role of computer-mediated communication in democratic discourse

Thomas Frank coined the term 'the conquest of cool'. This book shows how this conquest is at the heart of the dynamics of contemporary capitalism. Jim McGuigan argues that 'cool capitalism' incorporates disaffection into capitalism itself, absorbing rebellion and neutralising opposition to the present system of culture and society.The book explores a huge variety of cultural examples, from the sleek images of mainstream advertising, to the fringes of artistic production, offering a vigourous critique of our understanding of subversion, resistance and counter-culturalism. Is there is still any space left for rebellion against the seductive power of the free market economy?

Thomas Frank coined the term 'the conquest of cool'. This book shows how this conquest is at the heart of the dynamics of contemporary capitalism. Jim McGuigan argues that 'cool capitalism' incorporates disaffection into capitalism itself, absorbing rebellion and neutralising opposition to the present system of culture and society.The book explores a huge variety of cultural examples, from the sleek images of mainstream advertising, to the fringes of artistic production, offering a vigourous critique of our understanding of subversion, resistance and counter-culturalism. Is there is still any space left for rebellion against the seductive power of the free market economy?

Information and communication technologies are said to be transforming urban life dramatically and bringing about rapid economic and cultural globalization. This book explores the many fascinating and urgent issues involved by relating advanced theoretical debates to practical matters of communication with cultural policy. It maps out a range of `optimistic' and `pessimistic' scenarios with special regard to various forms of inequality, particularly class, gender and geopolitical. Topics discussed include urban planning, virtual cities and actual cities, economic and political policy, and critical social analysis of current trends that are of momentous consequence. The book concludes that it is necessary to bring together a number of differently informing approaches, cultural, economic, political and technological, to make sense of a field of dynamic and contradictory forces.

Information and communication technologies are said to be transforming urban life dramatically and bringing about rapid economic and cultural globalization. This book explores the many fascinating and urgent issues involved by relating advanced theoretical debates to practical matters of communication with cultural policy. It maps out a range of `optimistic' and `pessimistic' scenarios with special regard to various forms of inequality, particularly class, gender and geopolitical. Topics discussed include urban planning, virtual cities and actual cities, economic and political policy, and critical social analysis of current trends that are of momentous consequence. The book concludes that it is necessary to bring together a number of differently informing approaches, cultural, economic, political and technological, to make sense of a field of dynamic and contradictory forces.

Cultural Methodologies illustrates the distinctiveness and coherence of cultural studies as a site of interaction between the humanities and the social sciences.

Topics covered include: the relationship between critical theory and cultural studies; the pragmatics of cultural research and education; ethical questions and research purposes; the role of feminism in cultural studies; the uses of autobiography; the analysis of city cultures; textual analysis and ethnographic procedures; constructions of identity in relation to `race', sexuality and nationhood; the use of qualitative and quantitative data; and some of the main issues involved in generating research findings for a thesis or other publication.

The book is written for students either commencing or intending to do research in cultural studies. It stresses how necessary it is to consider and plan very carefully the rationales and principles in research while avoiding the straitjacket of `methodolatory'.

Cultural Methodologies illustrates the distinctiveness and coherence of cultural studies as a site of interaction between the humanities and the social sciences.

Topics covered include: the relationship between critical theory and cultural studies; the pragmatics of cultural research and education; ethical questions and research purposes; the role of feminism in cultural studies; the uses of autobiography; the analysis of city cultures; textual analysis and ethnographic procedures; constructions of identity in relation to `race', sexuality and nationhood; the use of qualitative and quantitative data; and some of the main issues involved in generating research findings for a thesis or other publication.

The book is written for students either commencing or intending to do research in cultural studies. It stresses how necessary it is to consider and plan very carefully the rationales and principles in research while avoiding the straitjacket of `methodolatory'.

Neoliberal Culture presents a critical analysis of the impact of the global free-market - the hegemony of which has been described elsewhere by the author as 'a short counter-revolution' - on the arts, media and everyday life since the 1970s.

First Published in 2004. This book provides a novel understanding of current thought and enquiry in the study of popular culture and communications media. The populist sentiments and impulses underlying cultural studies and its postmodernist variants are explored and criticized sympathetically. An exclusively consumptionist trend of analysis is identified and shown to be an unsatisfactory means of accounting for the complex material conditions and mediations that shape ordinary people’s pleasures and opportunities for personal and political expression. Through detailed consideration of the work of Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall and ‘the Birmingham School’, John Fiske, youth subcultural analysis, popular television study, and issues generally concerned with public communication (including advertising, arts and broadcasting policies, children’s television, tabloid journalism, feminism and pornography, the Rushdie affair, and the collapse of communism), Jim McGuigan sets out a distinctive case for recovering critical analysis of popular culture in a rapidly changing, conflict-ridden world. The book is an accessible introduction to past and present debates for undergraduate students, and it poses some challenging theses for postgraduate students, researchers and lecturers.

Neoliberal Culture presents a critical analysis of the impact of the global free-market - the hegemony of which has been described elsewhere by the author as 'a short counter-revolution' - on the arts, media and everyday life since the 1970s.

Raymond Williams: A Short Counter-Revolution amply demonstrates the continuing relevance of Williams’s analysis, from the early 1980s, to our current situation. After thirty years of neoliberalism his insights still read as freshly and as incisively as they first did. Jim McGuigan’s new chapter explicitly extends the lines of continuity from then to now, in a persuasive and at times appropriately critical way. Williams’s concluding chapter, Resources for a Journey of Hope remains as inspiring, and as necessary, as ever. - Simon Dentith, University of Reading "It's great that Towards 2000 is revisited. Jim McGuigan's preface to this edition and his remarkable up-dating chapter A Short Counter Revolution draw upon a formidable range of references to illustrate why this work is as fresh and insightful today as it was 30 years ago." - Derek Tatton,   'Culture,' wrote Raymond Williams, ‘is one of the most complicated words in the English language.’  Ironically, the most important British writer on culture in the post-war period is also one of the most poorly digested among today’s readers.  

Originally conceived as the sequel to his 1961 The Long Revolution,  Williams' 1983 title Towards 2000 has been unfairly classified as a period piece. With the permission of the Williams Estate, the book has been re-entitled A Short Counter-Revolution – Towards 2000 Revisited, with noted Williams expert Jim McGuigan adding a chapter that updates the original with a survey of developments since its publication, par­ticularly concerning the impact of neoliberalism, a phenomenon sighted early by Raymond Williams and named ‘Plan X’. In this new edition, Jim McGuigan makes a totally convincing case to read the book as a contemporary classic.  It remains an indispensable guide to:

Power and inequality Class politics Post-industrial society Globalization The crisis in democracy

Raymond Williams was a complex figure with various different facets to his activity. Raymond Williams: Cultural Analyst concentrates on the formation and application of his cultural-materialist methodology and its relation to his politics. Surveying Williams’s extensive writings across the fields of cultural studies, sociology and Marxist theory, the overall objective is to rescue Williams from his routine treatment as a literary scholar, and restore him to his rightful place as a leading scholar of the social sciences, not least for his theoretically sophisticated contribution to the field in the form of cultural materialism. Ultimately, this book argues that Williams should be regarded as a cultural analyst in the sociological rather than narrowly literary sense.The book is replete with examples of Williams’s ideas and concepts that are of direct and illuminating relevance to twenty-first century problems. Throughout, Jim McGuigan displays a remarkable capacity to explain Williams’s sometimes complex ideas in an inviting and intuitively appealing way, making interesting connections across key concepts. For those familiar with Williams’s work, this new book will come as a breath of fresh air, and for readers coming across Williams for the first time, this offers an inspiring and vivid introduction to his work.

'Jim McGuigan has done it again. The complex cultural machinery hiding behind the apparently simple 'facts of life' still fresh in our collective memory, has been pulled out from its hiding, exposed, disassembled and put together again, and showed in action of shaping up its products; all that done to the benefit of us all - simultaneously producers and product of the life we share. Another great contribution to cultural studies; and to our understanding of the world notorious for defying/escaping understanding. This is exactly what we need 'cultural analysis' for' - Professor Zygmunt Bauman, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Leeds

'Jim McGuigan is one of cultural studies' leading practitioners. This volume is a generous and wide-reaching exploration of how to use cultural theory to explore a wide variety of topics, brought together under the sign of the struggle for a vigorous, participatory public sphere' - Toby Miller, University of California

This book represents a distinctive approach to cultural analysis, using multi-dimensional methods for addressing issues of public interest.

Stressing the impact of both neoliberalism and the formation of a 'cool capitalist culture' that has colonised everyday life around much of the globe, Jim McGuigan deploys his original concept of the 'cultural public sphere' within several carefully analysed case studies, including:

• celebrity death

• festivals and urban regeneration

• 'race' and multicultural controversy

• popular television

• social significance of the all purpose mobile communication device in a privatised and individualised way of life

• riskiness and uncertainty in the creative and media industries

This is a radical intervention in the research agendas and conceptual development of cultural policy studies, cultural sociology and, more generally, in the broad field known as 'cultural studies'. It offers challenging theoretical arguments that are substantiated with concrete evidence of cultural and social processes.

'Jim McGuigan has done it again. The complex cultural machinery hiding behind the apparently simple 'facts of life' still fresh in our collective memory, has been pulled out from its hiding, exposed, disassembled and put together again, and showed in action of shaping up its products; all that done to the benefit of us all - simultaneously producers and product of the life we share. Another great contribution to cultural studies; and to our understanding of the world notorious for defying/escaping understanding. This is exactly what we need 'cultural analysis' for' - Professor Zygmunt Bauman, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Leeds

'Jim McGuigan is one of cultural studies' leading practitioners. This volume is a generous and wide-reaching exploration of how to use cultural theory to explore a wide variety of topics, brought together under the sign of the struggle for a vigorous, participatory public sphere' - Toby Miller, University of California

This book represents a distinctive approach to cultural analysis, using multi-dimensional methods for addressing issues of public interest.

Stressing the impact of both neoliberalism and the formation of a 'cool capitalist culture' that has colonised everyday life around much of the globe, Jim McGuigan deploys his original concept of the 'cultural public sphere' within several carefully analysed case studies, including:

• celebrity death

• festivals and urban regeneration

• 'race' and multicultural controversy

• popular television

• social significance of the all purpose mobile communication device in a privatised and individualised way of life

• riskiness and uncertainty in the creative and media industries

This is a radical intervention in the research agendas and conceptual development of cultural policy studies, cultural sociology and, more generally, in the broad field known as 'cultural studies'. It offers challenging theoretical arguments that are substantiated with concrete evidence of cultural and social processes.

"The most important Marxist cultural theorist after Gramsci, Williams' contributions go well beyond the critical tradition, supplying insights of great significance for cultural sociology today... I have never read Williams without finding something worthwhile, something subtle, some idea of great importance" - Jeffrey C. Alexander, Professor of Sociology, Yale University Celebrating the significant intellectual legacy and enduring influence of Raymond Williams, this exciting collection introduces a whole new generation to his work.

Jim McGuigan reasserts and rebalances Williams' reputation within the social sciences by collecting and introducing key pieces of his work. Providing context and clarity he powerfully evokes the major contribution Williams has made to sociology, media and communication and cultural studies.   Powerfully asserting the on-going relevance of Williams within our contemporary neoliberal and digital age, the book:

Includes texts which have never been anthologised before Situates Williams' work both biographically and historically Provides a comprehensive introduction to Williams' social-scientific work Demonstrates the enduring relevance of cultural materialism.

Original and persuasive this book will be of interest to anyone involved in theoretical and methodological modules within sociology, media and communication studies and cultural studies.