At the Department of Culture & Media at Marylhurst University, we are dedicated to interdisciplinary inquiry, combining methods and insights from anthropology, literary theory, media studies, history, sociology, psychoanalysis, film studies, semiotics and philosophy.

Our principal focus is historical and contemporary social life, the political nature of popular contemporary culture, and the way meaning is produced through various social practices (media), beliefs (religious and political), and economic structures within a given culture.

Cultural studies examines how a cultural artifact or event (for example, a film like Brokeback Mountain or Slumdog Millionaire, a natural catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina, or "the war on terror") relates to matters of social class, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, ideology, or identity.