This second edition of Cultural Theory provides a conciseintroduction to cultural theory, placing major figures, traditionalconcepts, and contemporary themes within a sharp conceptualframework.* Provides a student-friendly introduction to what can often be acomplex field of study* Updates the first edition in response to reader feedback and tothe changing nature of the field* Includes additional coverage of theorists from the classicalperiod to include Nietzsche and DuBois* Introduces entirely new chapters on race and gender theory, andthe body* Considers themes that have become more important in theoreticalactivity in recent years such as computers and virtual reality,cosmopolitanism, and performance theory* Draws on theories and theorists from continental Europe as wellas the English-speaking world

Preface to the First Edition: About this Book viPreface to the Second Edition ixAcknowledgments xIntroduction: What is Culture? What is Cultural Theory? 11 Culture in Classical Social Theory 62 Culture and Social Integration in the Work of Talcott Parsons 263 Culture as Ideology in Western Marxism 344 Culture as Action in Symbolic Interactionism, Phenomenology, and Ethnomethodology 545 The Durkheimians: Ritual, Classification, and the Sacred 696 Structuralism and the Semiotic Analysis of Culture 927 The Poststructural Turn 1118 Culture, Structure, and Agency: Three Attempts at Synthesis 1289 British Cultural Studies 14410 The Production and Reception of Culture 15811 Culture as Text: Narrative and Hermeneutics 17612 Psychoanalytic Approaches to Culture and the Self 19513 The Cultural Analysis of Postmodernism and Postmodernity 20714 Postmodern and Poststructural Critical Theory 22815 Cultural Theories of Race and Gender 24116 The Body in Cultural Theory 262References 280Index 296