Understanding Culture

Born in London, Gavin Kendall was educated at Cambridge, Manchester and London Universities, and before moving to QUT, lectured for six years at Lancaster University. His books include The Sociology of Cosmopolitanism; State, Democracy and Globalization; Understanding Culture; and Using Foucault′s Methods. "I try to relate my teaching to my research, inasmuch as I try to always discuss my thinking on the key questions that have stayed with me through all my years as an undergraduate, a postgraduate, and an academic – questions of power and government, of the role of law, and of the limits of sovereignty."

• Surveying the Field of Cultural StudiesThe Notion of Ordering as an Organizing Principle for Cultural StudiesBuilding a Method for Cultural Studies as a Study of OrderingOrdering through the Culture of GovernmentA Colonial ExampleOrdering through the Culture of Law and RegulationOrdering through the Culture of Everyday LifeOrdering through RoutinizationTechnique, Technology and SelfConclusionReshaping Cultural Studies

`Cultural Studies has made a name for itself by pricking the pretensions of several disciplines, from sociology to literature. Now, along come Kendall and Wickham to do the same to cultural studies - a "must read" for anyone in the field′ - Toby Miller, New York University