“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.
Dr. Joanne Entwistle offers a foundation essay on fashion, and the everyday creative cultural activity of clothing ourselves. Not so very long ago, fashion was a rather... Continue reading
Dr Geoff Bright introduces a fascinating arts-based educational project, concerned with remembering, re-imagining and re-enacting alternative community futures in the abandoned, de-industrialised pit communities in the North... Continue reading
Chris Guiton presents a foundation essay for the education section, sketching out some of the links between education, culture and capitalism. The purpose of this introductory article... Continue reading
Chris Guiton analyses and discusses the importance of the concept of the cultural commons. In the 21st century we are witnessing the rapid encroachment by capitalism on... Continue reading
‘The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too’ said the aptly named Rose Schneiderman early in the last century. She was right, we all... Continue reading
It seems apt, in the midst of the festive season – a holiday typified by consumption to excess of all sorts of goods, after all – to... Continue reading
Nick Wright reviews Neoliberal Culture, edited by Jeremy Gilbert, a challenging collection of essays which exposes the ideological and cultural project behind neoliberalism. Capitalist realism is a... Continue reading
Nick Wright reviews Benjamin and Brecht: The Story of a Friendship, by Erdmut Wizisla. The diverse appropriations of Walter Benjamin – the cultural theorist and critic — of his... Continue reading
Adrian Chan-Wyles discusses some links between Marxism and Buddhism. ‘It is a question of spirit which creates itself out of nothing, hence it is a question of... Continue reading
Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt traces the contours of cultural policy in Cuba since the Revolution. On 26 July 1953, a group of young Cubans attacked two of the army... Continue reading