Cultural Analysis as Reportage

In the footsteps of Michel Foucault, cultural analysis has branded itself as a “history of the present.” In my contribution to this volume, I argue that such a “history of the present” can take the form of “reportage.” Reportage implies a certain form of research and writing, generated by a sense of urgency, of participating in the contemporary. To conceive of cultural analysis as reportage is to situate it in-between the humanities and the social sciences, in-between close reading and fieldwork. Reportage can constitute a valuable alternative to the “inward turn” in cultural analysis. To report means to take the analysis back into the unfinished business of the everyday and the contemporary