ABSTRACT
Allan Bloom and E. D. Hirsch argue for greater canonical cultural literacy among the college-age cohort in the US largely as a way of retrenching what they believe is the progressive political climate among the American professoriate. A minimalist agenda for American and British cultural studies replicates the European integration of intellectuals into public discourse. The culture-industry thesis is the single most important theoretical development equipping latter-day cultural studies enabling it to keep its theoretical wits about it instead of descending to the unfocused, untheorized cultural readings abounding today. For cultural studies to become directly engaged with the political functions of culture continues a long tradition of radical cultural analysis, beginning with orthodox Marxism. A radical cultural studies intervenes politically where it challenges representation to theorize itself, understanding how the repertoire of interpretive activities in which we habitually and thoughtlessly engage is, in fact, a careful political construction call it ideology.
