During, Simon. Cultural Studies: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge–Taylor and Francis, 2005. 244 pp. HM623.D87 306′.071.

Defining cultural studies “as the engaged analysis of contemporary cultures,” During offers an introduction to the field’s “core topics”: the discipline itself; time (past, present, future); space (local to global); media (television, popular music, and the Internet and technoculture); identity (multiculturalism and race); sexuality and gender (including queer culture); and value (high and low culture). Combining historical overviews, summaries of representative scholarship, descriptions of methodologies, and considerations of how cultural studies is demarcated from such related disciplines as literary studies, art history, and sociology, During offers an accessible overview of the evolving discipline of cultural studies.