This major critique on the important new discipline of cultural studies offers readings of Pierre Bourdieu, Michel de Certeau, Stuart Hall and Ernesto Laclau. The author argues for a new orientation for cultural studies starting from a recognition of the complexity of the category of culture.

Cultural Studies and Cultural Value is a major critique of the important new discipline of cultural studies. Cultural studies has generally organized itself around the opposition of high to low culture, reversing the traditional hierarchy of value, but leaving intact the polarity and the direct correlation of culture and class. Intellectuals play the crucial role in the mediation of the cultural field, and their possession of cultural capital endows them with specific class interests which are distinct from those of the classes or groups for whom they claim to speak.

Frow's argument, though conducted in rather forbidding prose, is frequently brilliant