Wittgenstein and Popular Culture
By (Author) Bernhard Stricker
Edited by Martin Urschel
Anthem Press
Anthem Press
16th April 2025
United Kingdom
Professional and Scholarly
Non Fiction
Performing arts
Cultural and media studies
192
Hardback
250
Width 153mm, Height 229mm, Spine 26mm
454g
This volume makes an incisive contribution to the field of philosophy of culture, filling a gap between the relevant scholarship in cultural studies and philosophy. In outlining the potential of Wittgenstein's philosophy for the study and criticism of popular culture, it aims to establish his work as an alternative or addition to existing approaches (Marxist, post-structuralist, etc.) in the field of popular culture theory. The essays outline the methodological framework of Wittgensteinian approaches to philosophy and conceptual analysis. Each essay demonstrates their merits by looking at particular examples such as analyses of popular films and TV series, detective fiction, comics, or shared practices of fandom. Thus, we encounter varieties of what it means to engage with approaches to criticism of pop in a Wittgensteinian way.
Bernhard Stricker is postdoctoral researcher at TU Dresden, working on the intersections between philosophy and literary/cultural studies.
Martin Urschel is a film scholar and writer whose research focuses on genre conventions in films and television, patterns of (anti-)conformism, and the uses of Wittgenstein's philosophical method for film and media studies.