ABSTRACT
Cultural Studies has been part of an effort to tear down the boundaries that have been erected between disciplines, particularly between the social sciences and the humanities. The history of more contemporary cultural studies as a field of theoretical inquiry is associated with the work of Richard Hoggart, a professor of literature at Birmingham University in Great Britain. Hall drew significantly from the work of Marx in his cultural critique and began developing a critical assessment of media and consumption. While the field of cultural studies has had a mixed record of successes and failures, it survives as an important interdisciplinary area of study. Terry Eagleton views much of cultural theory to be far too apolitical and trivial and incapable of bringing about any form of constructive change, which according to him should be its purpose. American cultural theory has eschewed the neo-Marxian orientation of its British counterpart.
