Culture/Metaculture

<P><EM>Culture/Metaculture</EM> is a stimulating introduction to the meanings of ''culture'' in contemporary Western society. This essential survey examines:</P><P>* culture as an antidote to ''mass'' modernity, in the work of Thomas Mann, Julien Benda, José Ortega y Gasset, Karl Mannheim and F. R. Leavis<BR>* changing views of the term in the work of Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, T. S. Eliot and Richard Hoggart<BR>* post-war theories of ''popular'' culture and the rise of Cultural Studies, paying particular attention to the key figures of Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall<BR>* theories of ''metaculture'', or the ways in which culture, however defined, speaks of itself.</P><P>Francis Mulhern''s interdisciplinary approach allows him to draw out the fascinating links between key political issues and the changing definitions of culture. The result is an unrivalled introduction to a concept at the heart of contemporary critical thought.</P>