关键词: 文化研究, 美学, 审美的文化研究

Abstract: Cultural studies have been distancing itself away from aesthetics since the latter half of the twentieth century. As the twenty-first century began, cultural studies nearly became synonymous with anti-aesthetics. In the surge of “the return to aesthetics” in the twenty-first century, scholars from the UK, the US and Australia have engaged in discussions regarding whether cultural studies and aesthetics are drifting apart and how they might be integrated. The relationship between cultural studies and aesthetics should not be one of opposition or subordination, but one of dialogue in which they draw on and blend with each other. This article argues that cultural studies and aesthetics are moving toward aesthetic cultural studies, in four aspects including redefining aesthetics, paying attention to the formal features of cultural products, valuing the engagement of aesthetic experience, and analyzing the mechanism of aesthetic evaluation.

Key words: cultural studies, aesthetics, aesthetic cultural studies