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This volume brings together papers given at the 18th British Cultural Studies Conference, held in Salzburg in 2007. As the title ‘High Culture and / versus Popular Culture’ suggests, it addresses an unsettled issue. On the one hand, it recalls the dissatisfaction with the distinction between high culture and popular culture characteristic of both post-fifties debates, which resulted in a complete re-orientation in cultural criticism, and of more recent suggestions of the ‘collapse of boundaries’. On the other hand, it calls attention to the many ways in which this distinction still makes sense, as has been argued in defence of cultural pluralism. Dealing with literature, music, the theatre, film and television, the papers collected in this volume address the following questions: Does high culture 'borrow' from popular culture? Or vice versa? What kinds of transformation or adaptation between the cultural hierarchies are involved? Why, when and how do the relationships between high and popular culture change, either within a single cultural phenomenon or among different ones? What do such changes mean in terms of taste, class and gender as well as in terms of genre, form, and language? If high and pop are more conveniently considered as working terms rather than as having any essentialist connotations, who categorizes cultural products as ‘high’ or ‘low’ or ‘popular’? Who is interested in such distinctions? Who negotiates these terms – ‘high’, ‘pop’, ‘low’, ‘high-pop’ – between a work of art, the artist / producer, and the recipient / consumer?

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The essay has constituted an important prose form since the sixteenth century and opens up an intriguing field for interdisciplinary study. Applied to such heterogeneous writings as maxims, aphorisms, proverbs, letters, and treatises, it has always eluded a clear definition. Not surprisingly, literary and cultural studies have been reluctant to tackle what appears to be a random array of prose texts straddling the boundaries between literature, philosophy and scientific writing, criticism and journalism. This volume explores the shifts and transformations of this rich genre, re-interpreting classic texts as well as drawing attention to previously neglected examples from a variety of cultural fields. A particular focus lies on the political and transformative potential of the essay, which has been embraced by women writers, activists, revolutionary thinkers or marginalized groups to give voice to their ideas and concerns. Thus, the essay has often been central in bringing to the fore new structures of feeling and emerging intellectual trends, conjoining literary and epistemic properties. Reihe Wissenschaft und Kunst - Band 32

English language --- Composition and exercises. --- Essay --- Essay. --- History and criticism.