Impure Acts: The Practical Politics of Cultural Studies

Description

Henry A. Giroux challenges the contemporary politics of cynicism by addressing a number of issues including the various attacks on cultural politics, the multicultural discourses of academia, the corporate attack on higher education, and the cultural politics of the Disney empire. Impure Acts points to a new kind of cultural politics and a new kind of political culture that put knowledge and practice in the service of a more realized democracy.

recent books include: Fugitive Cultures: Race, Violence, and Youth (Routledge 1996), Channel Surfing: Race Talk and the Destruction of Today's Youth (St. Martin's Press 1997), Pedagogy and the Politics of Hope (Westview/Harper Collins 1997), The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence (Rowman and Littlefield 1999) and Stealing Innocence: Youth, Corporate Power, and Cultural Politics (St. Martin's Press, forthcoming).

"Giroux is to be commended for his concise discussion of complex themes of academic discourse on democratic citizenship. He also does an excellent job of defining the terms that would be included in a thoughtful conversation about what it means to be a democratic citizen."-"Choice, January 2001 "Henry Giroux continues to lead the way in thinking creatively and critically about the interfaces between multiculturalism, cultural studies, pedagogy (in the broadest sense) and political analysis. Impure Acts revitalizes and reconstructs the culture of politics in the face of the prevailing pressures to reduce politics to the cultural marketplace. He returns us to questions of power and the public sphere, culture and critical contestation, desire, domination, and democracy. The book is vintage Giroux."-David Theo Goldberg, Arizona State University "Henry Giroux deftly shows how corporate culture functions as a cultural teaching machine that thwarts democratic practice. By forging links between critical educators and cultural studies scholars, he redefines the crucial role both can play as public intellectuals attuned to the economic, social, and ideological power relations of multinational capitalism."- Lee Quinby, Rochester Institute of Technology "Writing with power and passion, Henry Giroux provides a compelling and evocative explication of the political significance of cultural studies and the transformative potential of critical pedagogy. He addresses critics from both the left and the right, and invites all cultural workers to join in a radical project of revitalizing democratic life. In this book, Giroux presents a thought-provoking and inspiring call foranalysis and action, an "educated hope" that can counter cynicism and despair. Reading this book reminds us why critical pedagogy matters. Taking its lessons to heart will help us become more astute in our critiques of the relationship of culture and power, and more creative in our transformatiave pedagogical strategies."-Sharon Welch, University of Missouri at Columbia "There is no one writing in the U.S. today who can bridge culture, politics, and pedagogy as brilliantly as Henry Giroux does in "Impure Acts. Once again with this book Giroux remains unchallenged as the premiere scholar of critical and cultural pedagogy."-Kostas Myrsiades, West Chester University