ABSTRACT
Cultural studies are the goods of a smuggler, crossing the boundaries of literary studies into cultural history. One wonders whether these goods may sell to serve the cause of the discipline, bring useless confusion, or simply be forgotten by the wayside. They are branded “cultural studies” and originate from British historians, Marxist British historians at that. They are to be sold to French historians who seem lately to have given up on Marx. The smuggling seller tries to explain in what circumstances these cultural studies were fabricated, to what purpose, and under what conditions. The seller then goes on trying to help their cause by spilling their yarn to show how cultural studies evolved, but eventually gives up, the customers having gone elsewhere.
