Photographic disasters

The word neither diffident nor ostentatious ... The common word exact without vulgarity, The formal word precise but not pedantic. (Eliot 221

Talking (across) cultures: Grace and danger in the House of the European inquirer

In this paper, I want to begin to contemplate the possibility that the concept of culture could one day be thought outside modern Western thought, via a reading of Martin Heidegger's 'Dialogue on Language between a Japanese and an Inquirer'. As we shall see, for Heidegger, the dominant position here is representationalism. And so a large part of what I want to do here is to begin to shake the concept of culture from these dominant representationalist moorings

Questions of context in studies of talk and interaction—Ethnomethodology and conversation analysis

The questions dealt with in this special issue of Journal of Pragmatics are doubly vexed. The first matter at issue is that the papers I have solicited take on some aspects of the debate within, and between, ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA) – and, by extension, wider approaches to discourse analysis and perhaps even pragmatics as a whole – as to whether and, if so to what extent, contextual particulars are relevant to the analyst’s task in hand; therefore specifying, to some degree, what that task actually is

Editorial: Culture

The original idea for this issue of M/C was for contributors to discuss the many and varying possible meanings of the word "culture" and/or the various uses of the concepts of culture (in general) and cultures (in particular)

Not as stupid as all that: the Althusserian legacy

If Toby Miller's introduction to this volume is correct - and I see no reason to think otherwise - then cultural/screen studies may still need (perhaps as a consequence of its history alone) an input from Marxism. But that input, it seems, in the face of an unrelenting theoretical pluralism, will henceforth always be minor. Cultural studies remains "marxish" (though I still can't remember whether this is a term used by or about Eugene Kamenka). So what price Althusser, for us, today

Getting on My Nerves: A Memoir

I suffer from trigeminal neuralgia (TN) and have done so for several decades. The condition is intermittent but tends to get worse with age. Sometimes I’ll get a fortnight or so of chronic attacks. Other times, just a few twinges. But when a full attack kicks in, the pain is utterly unbearable. The term ‘suicide disease’ has been bandied about (Sarmah, 2008) and I have a good idea why..

The Humdrum

"Popular Culture" is usually taken to mean the culture of everyday life; albeit that the focus of a great deal of popular culture studies tend to be the occasional spectacular spikes that can occur in the rather dull and uniform wave pattern of the mundane..

Membership categorization, culture and norms in action

In this article, we examine the extent to which membership categorization analysis (MCA) can inform an understanding of reasoning within the public domain where morality, policy and cultural politics are visible (Smith and Tatalovich, 2003). Through the examination of three examples, we demonstrate how specific types of category device(s) are a ubiquitous feature of accountable practice in the public domain where morality matters and public policy intersect. Furthermore, we argue that MCA provides a method for analysing the mundane mechanics associated with everyday cultural politics and democratic accountability assembled and presented within news media and broadcast settings

'Here be dragons, here be savages, here be bad plumbing: Australian media representations of sport and terrorism

As 'Propaganda Theorists argue, an examination of key discourses can enhance our understanding of how economic, political and social debate is shaped by mainstream media reporting. In this essay we present content and discourse analysis of Australian media reporting on the nexus of sport and terrorism. Examining newspaper reports over a five-year period, from 1996-2001, which included the 11 September 2001 terrorist tragedy in the United States (9/11), provides useful insights into how public discourse might be influenced with regard to sport and terrorism interrelationships. The results of the media analysis suggest that hegemonic tropes are created around sport and terrorism. The distilled message is one of good and evil, with homilies of sport employed in metaphors for western society and its values. The reactions and responses of sport administrators and athletes to terrorist acts and the threat of terrorism to sport are used to exemplify these ideals, providing newspaper readers a context within which to localize meaning and relevance