Abstract

Taking the Sociology of Knowledge as its methodology and reflecting the challenges Cultural Studies encountered in the context of neo-liberalism as its starting point,this book investigates British Culturalism both as an ideological tradition and a research paradigm,with the core problematic awareness of reconsidering the location of culture.It aims to scrutinize the specificities and key ideas of culturalism in terms of British special social and historical context,and exerts to study the formation of a mass society in Britain,the rise of English Studies,the New Left Movement,the post-war British adult education,and the research characteristics of CCCS,and then examines the inner connection between British Culturalism as an ideological tradition and as a research paradigm with its historical context and realistic significance.The book highlights the complex ideological debates,rediscovers and presents some major replaced topics as well.

First,the British "Culture and Civilization" tradition is actually an internal difference created by the interaction and collision between Britain and the European mainland,with Europe as the original point.Matthew Arnold,T.S.Eliot and F.R.Leavis construct their ideas of culture by criticizing and profoundly considering the forming of British mass society.Matthew Arnold successfully converts the opposition between "Culture/Nature" into the contrast between "culture/civilization",builds up a binary opposition between popular culture and elite culture,and also offers a unique so-called Arnoldian perspective leading popular culture into serious academic research.The rise of English Studies and the institutionalization of English literary criticism indicate the process of culturalism as an ideological tradition from discourse to institutionalization.F.R.Leavis and the Scrutiny circle follow the "Culture-Civilization" tradition stemmed from Arnold,and have become the node of British Culturalism as an ideological tradition and as a research paradigm.The book focuses on the transformations of "the idea of culture",deals with "literary studies and cultural criti cism","popular culture criticism" and the debates between F.R.Leavis and René Wellek or Marxism,with the exertion to demonstrate the complications,various tensions and articulation context during the special process.

Second,the British New Left emerged as the articulation of the post-war British social transformations and the three significant historical events occurring in 1956.In some sense,a superficial phenomenon of a classless society was caused by the welfare system,consumerism and popular culture,and culture was highlighted as a leading topic.In other sense,the British New Left tried to find the Third Road between Marxism and Leavisism,and everyday life has been a key word not only for Hoggart and Williams'criticism upon Leavisite notion of elitist culture,but also for E.P.Thompson's refutation of vulgar materialism and determinism.The above thinkers paid close attention to the daily experiences of British working class,emphasized cultural autonomy and individual agency,reconstructed a sort of intersubjective cultural politics,which laid a foundation for the rise of Cultural Studies.

This book also analyses Richard Hoggart and "the cultural turn",Raymond Williams and "the revolution of cultural concept",E.P.Thompson's criticism upon Williams'concept of culture,the long-term debates between E.P.Thompson and Perry Anderson,and Stuart Hall's explanation of the two paradigms,so as to clarify the ideological debates,structural tensions and intrinsic characteristics of culturalism as a research paradigm.

This book is not only beneficial for the construction of the disciplinary history of Cultural Studies,but also offers an ideal reference for Cultural Studies of the Chinese mainland.