Of special interest in this number is the focus section on the challenges facing the discipline of cultural studies. As Venn describes in his introduction to the special section, the question of how to do cultural studies today is inseparable from the worldwide transformations with regard to culture, economy, technology and environment.

His second article in this collection presents a genealogy of power, paying attention to the concept of hegemony for cultural theory from the 1960s and analysing the changes in the relations of culture, politics and the economy.

Worth noting furthermore:
- Terranova's analysis on the making of hegemonic opinions based on Said's commentary on the US media coverage of Islam in the late 1970s;
- the review essay by Kemple who examines the revival of critical theoretical attention to the "new capitalism".