Abstract
This paper critically examines “the vague and baggy monster” that much CS has become, how
it has travelled, and what utilitarian forms it asumes in totally different contexts and periods.
The field, once known for its activist intellectualism, has been everywhere re-articulated into
and doing different kinds of work: translation, literary studies, marketing, audience, policy
analysis and discourse analysis.
Cultural Studies’ hybridized nature is examined in its very different manifestations in different
historical contexts, national debates and objectives. One particular Chinese appropriation will
be compared to early British, Australian, South American, American and South African
experiences. The discourse of Cultural China in understanding a globalized market economy
following the end of the Cold War is examined. The implications for global cultural studies are
discussed in terms of ideological metaphors of the color ‘red’ (as in revolutions [cultural,
political, guerilla] and in fashion).