The first six articles in this issue of Social Research continue an investigation of the relations between politics and various aspects of human experience begun in our Winter 1989 issue on "Philosophy and Politics."  Future issues will look at "Religion and Politics" and "Science and Politics."
    The articles devoted to this theme in the current issue are concerned with the relation between culture and politics - although in almost every instance the critic's lens is focused on the impact of politics on culture rather than on the influence of culture on politics.  This imbalance is perhaps inevitable at a moment when voices are raised in arguments about the "canon" and the merits of cultural diversity, when the uses of language and the construction of the lexicon are construed as political acts.  In fact, at the current moment in at least some places, politics and culture have become virtually synonymous.  We seem to be living at a time when culture has become fully politicized and contested.
    An issue on "Culture and Politics" is therefore certainly timely, but for this very reason cannot be and is not dispassionate.  This troubles me as editor, particularly since I, like so many others, find myself deeply embroiled in these issues.  Nevertheless, it is my belief that, whether or not one finds one's self in sympathy with what is argued in these pages, the arguments the authors make merit serious attention.
    In all Social Research thematic issues, many subjects are neglected that could and frequently should have been included.  Because of the passions surrounding the topic of this issue, these absences may seem more evident.  The only solution may be a future issue on the same subject.

    Culture and Politics
    Editor's Introduction                                                                                                                               311

    The Context of Burke's
    Reflections                                                      David Bromwich                                                          313

    Othering the Academy:
    Professionalism and
    Multiculturalism                                               Bruce Robbins                                                                355

    Representing Fundamentalism:
    The Problem of the Repugnant
    Cultural Other                                                Susan Harding                                                                373

    On the Politics of Cultural
    Theory: A Case for
    "Contaminated" Cultural
    Critique                                                          Kathleen Stewart                                                            395

    Citizen Chicano: The Trials and
    Titillations of Ethnicity in the
    American Cinema, 1935-1962                       Chon Noriega                                                                  413

    Culture, Politics, and National
    Identity in Cote d'Ivoire                                   Jerome Vogel                                                                  439

    Economics as Universal Science                       Robert Heilbroner                                                          457

    The Enlightenment Redefined:
    The Formation of Modern Civil
    Society                                                            Margaret C. Jacob                                                         475
 
 

David Bromwich is professor of English at Yale University, the author, most recently, of Choice of Inheritance: Self and Community from Edmund Burke to Robert Frost (1989).

Susan Harding is professor of anthropology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, wrote Remaking Ibieca: Rural Life in Aragon under Franco (1984).

Robert Heilbroner is Norman Thomas Professor Emeritus in the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research.  His most recent book is Behind the Veil of Economics (1988).

Margaret C. Jacob is professor of history in the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research.  Her books include The Cultural Meaning of the Scientific Revolution (1987).

Chon Noriega, assistant professor of American Studies at the Univerisyt of New Mexico, edited Chicanos and Film (1991).

Bruce Robbins teaches English at Rutgers University.  He is the author of The Servant's Hand: English Fiction from Below (1986).

Kathleen Stewart is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Jerome Vogel was the first Fulbright Professor at the University of Abidjan and now directs the Parsons School of Design program in West Africa.