ABSTRACT

“Cultural studies now and in the future” is a very optimistic title, but this optimism can only be based on the awareness of a deep crisis. Crisis has been the password of the field from Hoggart to Williams, from Hall to Jameson and Hebdige; the crisis in English, to use Hoggart’s words, fostered its start. Today this word could be replaced by another more apocalyptic term: Baudrillard, speaking of the “transpolitical,” says that “it is the site of catastrophe, not of crisis any more” (cf. Baudrillard 1983a, p. 23). This discourse of crisis touches intellectual work as well—our work, our research, our role. Thus we are here to find a sort of anchorage, to utter a temporary “truth” on the state of affairs, while being aware, more than in the past, of the loss of that centrality which our role as intellectuals had conferred on us, and with it of the break up of former methodological, literary, philosophical guarantees.