ABSTRACT
I propose to begin, however, by hazarding a brief description of our era as a cultural one, although, as Jameson observed, this remains so ‘in some original and yet untheorised sense’ (1984: 87). This condition is not, however, without referents as the culturesaturation of our time has a number of identifiable features, as well as recognizable opportunities. Culture has long been recognized as expanding (Williams 1966) and does so at unprecedented rates in an information and knowledge age where lives are lead in a condition in which ‘Culture refers to Culture’ (Castells 1998: 477). This weight of culture is expressed in many dimensions, from the growing importance of cognitive
factors in social life that characterizes a post-industrial world of symbolization and personal and professional representation, through to the fact that cultural consumption and production have become ‘the principal activity of Europeans’ (Sassoon 2006) and for numerous others around the globe.
