“Roots” and Perspectives of Cultural Studies

Abstract

     It is not easy to answer the question “What is cultural studies ?”. Because “cultural studies does not speak with one voice, it cannot be spoken with one voice, I do not have one voice with which to represent it”.
(Barker,2000:4). In this paper I try to go back to the historical “roots” (new left movement and thought, British culturalism, French structurism and post-structurism and so on) and draw the “outline” of this “multi- or post-disciplinary” (Barker, op. cit.).
     Through this research I'll try to make my position clear on the theories and practices of cultural studies “movement” and want to point out what it means to Japanese sociology.