Cultural critic

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

A cultural critic is a

cultural theory. While such criticism is simply part of the self-consciousness
of the culture, the social positions of the critics and the medium they use vary widely. The conceptual and political grounding of criticism also changes over time.

Terminology

Contemporary usage has tended to include all types of criticism directed at culture.

The term "cultural criticism" itself has been claimed by

American culture as national.[4]

In contrast, a work such as Richard Wolin's 1995 The Terms of Cultural Criticism: The Frankfurt School, Existentialism, Poststructuralism (1995) uses it as a broad-brush description.

Victorian sages as critics

Cultural critics came to the scene in the nineteenth century.

aesthetes and others might be considered implicitly to be engaging in cultural criticism, but the actual articulation is what makes a critic. In France, Charles Baudelaire was a cultural critic, as was Søren Kierkegaard in Denmark and Friedrich Nietzsche
in Germany.

Twentieth century

Further information: Critical theory, Frankfurt School, Theodor W. Adorno, and Culture industry

In the twentieth century Irving Babbitt on the right, and Walter Benjamin[6] on the left, might be considered major cultural critics. The field of play has changed considerably, in that the humanities have broadened to include cultural studies of all kinds, which are grounded in critical theory. This trend is not without its dissidents, however; James Seaton has written extensively in defense of the continued importance of the Humanistic Tradition Irving Babbitt and his heirs championed, while criticizing the dominance of critical theory in the teaching of literature. Theory's Empire: An Anthology of Dissent features a collection of essays from prominent English professors, writers and critics stating their disagreement with the prominent role given to critical theory in English departments.

Notable contemporary critics

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Remembering Lionel Trilling, (1976), reprinted in The Jacques Barzun Reader (2002).
  2. ^ Casey Nelson Blake, a professor at Columbia University where Barzun and Trilling were, uses the term in the 1990 book title Beloved Community: The Cultural Criticism of Randolph Bourne, Van Wyck Brooks, Waldo Frank, and Lewis Mumford.
  3. ISBN 9780198727835
    .
  4. ISBN 9780859894043
    .
  5. ^ His much-cited Culture and Anarchy was subtitled An Essay in Political and Social Criticism.
  6. ^ E.g. Richard Wolin, Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of Redemption (1994), series Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism, 7.
  7. ^ "A CULTURAL CRITIC ANSWERS HIS OWN".
  8. ^ "Schooling: The Hidden Agenda". Archived from the original on 2013-01-20. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
  9. ^ "Scholar, cultural critic Gates to give Kent Lecture".
  10. ^ "Cultural Critic and Psych Professor Attacks 'Frozen' as 'Propagandistic'".

External links

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