New Keywords Paperback - 2005

First line

Aesthetics is generally defined as the branch of philosophy that concerns itself with the arts, and especially with the sensory, perceptual reception of art.

From the rear cover

Raymond Williams' Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society is justly renowned for its role in providing a whole generation of students and intellectuals with trusty and cogent distillations of the language of cultural studies. First published in 1976, the text played a pivotal role in both academic and public understandings of culture and society and the relations between them. New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society updates Williams's classic text by reflecting the transformation in culture and society over the last quarter century.

New Keywords includes many of Williams's original entries, but with new discussions of their history and use over the last 25 years. Several other entries encapsulate the practices, institutions, and debates of contemporary society. The editors have assembled an international team of scholars to write from a variety of disciplines and interdisciplinary fields - cultural and media studies, feminism, post-colonial and subaltern studies, the history of science, sociology, gay and lesbian studies. The result is a state-of-the art reference for students, teachers and public intellectuals everywhere.