A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole and typically on a radical basis. There is significant overlap with social criticism and social philosophers.
Contemporary usage has tended to include all types of criticism directed at culture.
The term cultural criticism itself has been claimed by Jacques Barzun: No such thing was recognized or in favour when we [i.e. Barzun and Trilling] began — more by intuition than design ...
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A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole and typically on a radical basis. There is significant overlap with social criticism and social philosophers.
Contemporary usage has tended to include all types of criticism directed at culture.
The term cultural criticism itself has been claimed by Jacques Barzun: No such thing was recognized or in favour when we [i.e. Barzun and Trilling] began — more by intuition than design — in the autumn of 1934. In contrast, a work such as Richard Wolin's 1995 The Terms of Cultural Criticism: The Frankfurt School, Existentialism, Poststructuralism (1995) uses it as a broad-brush description.
Cultural critics came to the scene in the nineteenth century. Matthew Arnold and Thomas Carlyle are leading examples of a cultural critic of the Victorian age; in Arnold there is also a concern for religion. John Ruskin was another. Because of an equation made between ugliness of material surroundings and an impoverished life, aesthetes...
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