“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.
What did Marx mean by his vivid metaphor? Roland Boer continues his series of articles on Marxism and religion with an examination of the historical, textual and... Continue reading
Chris Jury traces the relations between culture, oppositional consciousness and class struggles in recent history. “It may be good to have power based on arms but it... Continue reading
Several pieces on both the arts and culture hubs express, creatively and critically, what communism might mean. It’s touched on in the poetry of Salena Godden, David... Continue reading
John Storey outlines the relations between football’s history and social class. In the About Us section of this website, cultural activities are described as sites of domination... Continue reading
Roland Boer sets the scene for a series of articles on the complex and contradictory relations between Marxism and religion, with an introduction to some of the... Continue reading
Susan Jones outlines how activism can help artists in an age of austerity and widening gaps between rich and poor. The so-called golden age of arts funding... Continue reading
Chris Jury explains why we should defend the BBC against the free-marketeers. The period of public consultation on the BBC Charter renewal has already been undermined by the... Continue reading
John Green introduces the life of Alexander von Humboldt, the father of ecology who combined scientific investigation with a sense of high moral purpose. It is doubtful... Continue reading
Ben Stevenson outlines Christopher Caudwell’s historical materialist analysis of religion. Poet, activist and theoretician Christopher Caudwell wrote extensively on issues of philosophy and idealism in culture and... Continue reading
What is culture and why does it matter? To help us answer those questions, Professor John Storey outlines a neo-Gramscian approach to culture. It exposes culture as a... Continue reading