A critical hermeneutics of agency: Cultural studies as critical social theory

This chapter reconstructs the project of cultural studies as the productive continuation of the epistemic interests pursued by the early Frankfurt School. Both critical theory and cultural studies are interested in culture as a medium in which power and subjectivity intersect. For the two social-scientific paradigms, the central question is the relation between power and agency, i. e., how social practices of power influence the hermeneutic self-understanding of subjects, and how those subjects in turn are capable of influencing their respective cultural and social practices. The reconstruction of the methodological paths of both perspectives leads to a critical-hermeneutic position able to provide a methodological framework for empirical social research with normative intent