Abstract
Towards the end of 2013 Theory, Culture & Society launched its revamped website. Over recent months the site has developed into a fully open access supplement to the TCS journal proper. The site has been used to publish a variety of materials that complement and extend the reach of the journal. The site is still evolving, with a range of new initiatives in place for the coming year, but we have already published responses to TCS articles, interviews, thought pieces, video-abstracts, new translations and reflections on events – with book reviews to appear before the end of 2014. The aim will be to continue to build the site as a major resource for those researching and teaching the broad terrain covered by Theory, Culture & Society. The site will be used to respond to and append key content in the journal, whilst also breaking new ground and providing space for ideas to develop. We envision the site as a vibrant space and hub of activity for exploring new conceptual developments and ideas. We encourage readers to follow the site and to be part of these exciting transformations in dialogue, exchange and publishing.
As a result of the high quality of materials that we have received for the website, and to help to introduce this material to the journal’s wider ‘print’ readership, we have included here a small selection of content from the site. The pieces have been selected to give a sense of the range of topics and types of articles that we host on the site. To open the section we have included two pieces that respond to an article that was originally published in the journal. We include here William Davies’ response to Nicholas Gane’s original journal article on the emergence of neoliberalism. Alongside this we have included Nick Gane’s thoughtful reply. To give some context to the dialogue, we follow this exchange with William Davies’ comprehensive bibliographic essay on neoliberalism. In last year’s Annual Review the journal published a special section on The Urban Problematic; our selection includes Caroline Knowles’ response to Ryan Bishop and John WP Phillips’s foundational introduction to that special section. Then we include two interviews. The first interview, with David Berry, discusses the use of critical theory for interrogating digital media. The second interview, with Btihaj Ajana, focuses on the politics of measurement. Then, finally, we include two pieces that show the way that the new site is to be used to further expand the cultural analysis offered within the ‘print’ journal. The first of these pieces, taken from a short series of website contributions from Les Back, looks at the concept of love through the music of Smokey Robinson. The second, a piece contributed by Goldie Osuri, provides a critical encounter with Hindi cinema. We hope that this small collection gives some sense of the quality and variety of content that the TCS site publishes. We have only really managed to touch the surface in this small selection of highlights.
In short, we see this new site as being a space for ideas and creative thinking. We hope that it will be a resource that you can turn to for inspiring and vital engagements with conceptual questions and problems. We encourage you to visit and follow the new TCS site, which can be found at theoryculturesociety.org