The Hegemony of a Sociological Discourse

The review offers critical insights about the 30th issue of the Hungarian journal Fordulat, entitled “Culture and Capitalism.” Following the acknowledgement of the articles’ merits in contributing to critical discourses concerning the material aspects of cultural production, it reveals some crucial tensions between the aims of the publication and its proposed methodology by focussing on the introductory piece and the programmatic paper of the issue. The review points out that despite its declared goal of providing a sociology of cultural production that includes the analysis of cultural products and art works, the emphasis on the political economy of cultural production crowds out entire traditions of critical discourses that have meaningful things to say about the specifics of the culture produced.