ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows how in the United States, Cultural Studies is currently under attack as being untheoretical. It offers the critical potential for examining and transforming institutionalized intellectual disciplinarity itself'. The book looks at aspects of the processes of knowledge production in Cultural Studies, cohere around several themes, each of which raises questions of discipline about Cultural Studies. It suggests how Cultural Studies projects can, at present, 'actively intervene in/initiate transformations in both disciplinary arrangements and pedagogical practices in higher education'. A liberal newspaper in the UK asked if studies of the media are so limited as to bring students to a 'self-referential, self-consuming cul-de-sac'. One key site where the powerful critique of the processes of knowledge production so central to Cultural Studies began was within student/teacher dialogue.
