“Education is, before everything else, the process of giving to the ordinary members of society its full common meanings, and the skills that will enable them to amend these meanings, in the light of their personal and common experience.”
Raymond Williams, ‘Culture is Ordinary’
Culture is indeed ordinary, it includes most human activities: the arts, religion, sport, science and technology, TV/ radio and other media, the internet, eating and drinking, etc. etc. All of these topics have political dimensions involving struggles and negotiations over meanings and values. On this hub are articles on cultural activities apart from the arts, which are to be found on the arts hub, surprisingly enough.
Sean Ledwith writes about how colonialism and racism has conditioned the history of Test cricket between Pakistan and England This summer’s Test series between England and Pakistan... Continue reading
David Betteridge writes critically and creatively about the artwork above, Nature writing, Bertolt Brecht, and eco-communism. The idea of nature contains, though often unnoticed, an extraordinary amount... Continue reading
Theresa Easton, Northern Organiser for Artists’ Union England, shows how the Covid crisis should be tackled by applying the principles of cultural democracy. The image above is... Continue reading
Razia Parveen criticises the government’s decision to make poetry optional for study at GCSE level. The image above is of John Agard The Tory government has recently... Continue reading
Rod Stoneman outlines proposals for developing new, more radical and progressive media You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. It comes from... Continue reading
Fran Lock writes about poetry and class, in the latest in the series of jointly published Morning Star/Culture Matters articles on the effects of the pandemic on... Continue reading
Sean Ledwith shows how cricket can be a site and a symbol of political liberation as well as of racist, imperialist oppression The First Test between England... Continue reading
Razia Parveen argues that pulling down statues should only be the beginning of a radical decolonisation of the educational curriculum I didn’t know that. Why didn’t they... Continue reading
Dave Lordan, in the first of a three part series, explores creativity, the arts and cultural activities before the development of class-based societies. Poetry is indispensable –... Continue reading
Over a hundred years ago, during the first national railway stoppage in Britain, the military were called out in force to quell the strike. They were deployed... Continue reading