ABSTRACT
This chapter provides students with an introduction to the genealogies of Cultural Studies. It offers some examples of how the perspectives of the competing forms of Cultural Studies applied to a cultural text. The chapter discusses the role of media from the perspective of Kulturwissenschaft, the connections of capitalism, class, and power in the light of British Cultural Studies, and the representation of 'race' and gender from the point of view of American Cultural Studies. It aspects of Mad Men would lend themselves to an investigation from the perspectives of Kulturwissenschaft as well as British and American Cultural Studies. Raymond Williams, Edward Thompson, Richard Hoggart, and Stuart Hall at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University established a form of Cultural Studies that has also been called the "Birmingham School". The form of Cultural Studies proved highly attractive to scholars who represented groups formerly excluded from the elitist canon, for instance women, immigrants, and the working class.
