ABSTRACT
The presence and impact of cultural studies in the first world academies are both undeniable and ambivalent. They are undeniable because there is no major university in any of the regions that comprise this geopolitical unit without scholars or programs devoted to the study of human phenomena under the rubric of “cultural studies.” Their reality is met by ambivalence, however, because of the ongoing battles over questions of rigor and disciplinarity in the Western academy. Even where cultural studies is present, and may even be having great impact, it may meet opposition as a legitimate, academic field of inquiry. This is primarily because of the tendency of such scholars to focus on “popular” culture, the consequence of which, from a more traditional, academic perspective, is the appearance of “fluff” or less enduring work. Moreover, the political history of cultural studies is one that often valorizes working-class and lumpen-proletariat communities across racial and ethnic lines, and, when wedded to postmodern developments, it extols so-called marginalized groups, the result of which has been an alliance with identity politics and the politics of difference that at least lay claim to favoring such groups.
