New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society [Paperback]

Tony Bennett (Editor), Lawrence Grossberg (Editor), Meaghan Morris (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0631225692 | ISBN-13: 978-0631225690 | Publication Date: May 2, 2005 | Edition: 1

Over 25 years ago, Raymond Williams’ Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society set the standard for how we understand and use the language of culture and society. Now, three luminaries in the field of cultural studies have assembled a volume that builds on and updates Williams’ classic, reflecting the transformation in culture and society since its publication. New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society is a state-of-the-art reference for students, teachers and culture vultures everywhere.

• Assembles a stellar team of internationally renowned and interdisciplinary social thinkers and theorists

• Showcases 142 signed entries – from art, commodity, and fundamentalism to youth, utopia, the virtual, and the West – that capture the practices, institutions, and debates of contemporary society

• Builds on and updates Raymond Williams’s classic Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, by reflecting the transformation in culture and society over the last 25 years

• Includes a bibliographic resource to guide research and cross-referencing

• The book is supported by a website: www.blackwellpublishing.com/newkeywords.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"We think in words. A careful discussion of the words we use helps us to think more clearly about modern western society. All academic libraries catering for the humanities or social sciences should consider requiring a reference copy, as should those public libraries which still feel their mission is to assist their readers in thinking clearly, rather than just to provide them with entertainment." Martin Guha, King's College London

Book Description

Raymond Williams' Keywords: A Vocabulary Of Culture And Society is justly renowned for its role in providing a whole generation of students and intellectuals with trusty and cogent distillations of the language of cultural studies. First published in 1976, the text played a pivotal role in both academic and public understandings of culture and society and the relations between them. New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary Of Culture And Society updates Williams' classic text by reflecting the transformation in culture and society over the last quarter century. This major new publication includes many of Williams' original entries, but with new discussions of their history and use over the last 25 years. In total, the volume showcases 148 signed entries - from art, commodity, and fundamentalism to utopia, the virtual, and the West - that capture the practices, institutions, and debates of contemporary society. The editors have assembled an international team of scholars to write from a variety of disciplines and interdisciplinary fields - cultural and media studies, feminism, postcolonial and subaltern studies, the history of science, sociology, and gay and lesbian studies. The result is a state-of-the art reference for students, teachers and public intellectuals everywhere.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (May 2, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0631225692
• ISBN-13: 978-0631225690
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #208,561 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellents Resource for Students of Cultural and Media Studies, September 13, 2005

By 

mary sanders (uk) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society (Paperback)

The editors, Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg and Meaghan Morris are well known academics and scholars in cultural studies. The New Keywords is a comprehensive resource for everyone furthering their studies in cultural and literary theory. In addition, students involved in anthropology, sociology and philosophy may find it very useful.

2.0 out of 5 stars Usless in the age of Wikipedia, January 3, 2012

By 

D. Ante - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society (Paperback)

This book, which was required for an introduction to graduate studies course I recently took, is nothing more than a specialized, and random, encyclopedia. The other reviews hail this volume as a "comprehensive resource" for multiple areas of study. The problem is, the definitions of each term are too broad to be useful to specialists and too random and/or inaccessible for people merely interested in these topics. Most of the terms are all so unrelated that I just don't see the point of owning this book. If you need a definition for "globalism" and "materialism," buying this book would be useless. There are plenty of free resources online which also define such terms, and often more comprehensively than this broad overview.

I can see why such a volume was viable when it was first printed in the 70's, but why it was reprinted in 2005 is beyond me. This seems to be an intellectual artifact with very little use in the 21st century.

7 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another model for Taxonomy and Classification of Information, May 18, 2005

By 

Dr. Mohamed Taher (Toronto) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society (Paperback)

View the Contents of this book to see how it fits as a re-newed model:
Acknowledgements Abbreviations
Introduction

Aesthetics, Alternative, Art, Audience
Behaviour, Biology, Body, Bureaucracy,
Canon, Capitalism, Celebrity, Citizenship, City, Civilization, Class, Colonialism, Commodity, Communication, Community, Conservatism, Consumption, Copy, Country, Culture
Deconstruction, Democracy, Desire, Development, Diaspora, Difference, Disability, Discipline, Discourse,
Economy, Education, Elite, Emotion, Empirical, Environment / ecology, Equality, Ethnicity, Everyday, Evolution, Experience
Family, Fashion, Feminism, Fetish, Freedom, Fundamentalism,
Gay and Lesbian, Gender, Generation, Gene/genetic, Globalization, Government
Heritage, History, Holocaust, Home, Human, Human Rights
Ideology, Identity, Image, Indigenous, Individual, Industry, Information, Intellectual
Justice, Knowledge, Liberalism
Management, Marginal, Market, Mass, Materialism, Media, Memory
Mobility, Modern, Movements, Multiculturalism
Narrative, Nation, Nature, Network, Normal
Objectivity, Orientalism, Other
Participation, Person, Place, Policy, Political correctness Popular, Pornography, Postcolonialism, Postmodernism, Poverty
Power, Pragmatism, Private, Public, Queer,
Race, Radical, Reason, Reform/revolution, Relativism Representation, Resistance, Risk,
Science, Self, Sexuality, Sign, Socialism, Society, Sovereignty,
Space, Spectacle, State,
Taste, Technology, Text, Theory, Therapy, Time, Tolerance, Tourism, Unconscious, Utopia, Value, Virtual, Welfare, West, the
Work, Writing, Youth,

About the Book:
Over 25 years ago, Raymond Williams' Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society set the standard for how we understand and use the language of culture and society. Now, three luminaries in the field of cultural studies have assembled a volume that builds on and updates Williams' classic, reflecting the transformation in culture and society since its publication. New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society is a state-of-the-art reference for students, teachers and culture vultures everywhere.