Andrew Milner

Amidst continuing debates about the literary canon, Literature, Culture and Society poses a revealing question--if academics find it valuable and stimulating to discuss texts ranging from Genesis to Bladerunner in their leisure time, why do they act as if this is sacrosanct in their formal work? In this well- argued and refreshing discussion of the history and importance of literary criticism, Milner embraces a reality that many in the academy still fear, that cultural studies is alive, and it's here to stay. Andrew Milner begins with an introduction to the field of cultural studies and its parent disciplines of English literature and sociology. He reviews the defining terms and the theoretical traditions in a manner that is sophisticated but accessible. He discusses just how and why cultural studies evolved, and what it has to offer our appraisal of all texts, be they old or new, print or film. Milner eschews both cultural populism and literary elitism in favor of a criticism that is more concerned with value than with exclusion. The author concludes this significant and insightful book with a demonstration of his theories, tying together a group of narratives ranging from Paradise Lost to the latest Frankenstein films. Literature, Culture and Society cogently examines the question of scholarship and forcefully demonstrates that rigorous academic inquiry need not be reserved for dust-covered texts alone.

For much of the 20th century, idealist accounts sought to represent culture as ""pure"" consciousness, while materialist accounts represented it as a secondary ""effect"" of some other material reality. From the 1970s, however, new theoretical paradigms have sought rather to establish the materiality of culture itself. The term ""cultural materialism"", coined by Raymond Williams, describes this emergent body of cultural theory. ""Cultural Materialism"" is both an introduction and a contribution to cultural theory. It situates cultural materialism in relation to earlier paradigms such as literary humanism and Marxism. It explains how the new paradigm has been applied to important areas such as cultural studies, media studies and literary studies. It explains the more significant differences between British and French variants in the paradigm: Raymond Williams, E. P. Thompson and the Birmingham School in Britain, Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault in France.