Has culture gone beyond the social dimension? Has ir moved out of its own orbir and given way to a media-dominared consumer culture which is a slave to rhe proliferarion of commercial signs and images? How can we srrike a balance berween the globalization of me economy and politics and rhe survival of local culture and hisrory without falling into the rrap of rnercantile tourisrn? What alrernarive, non-mainstream, critica! and ideological discourses are culrurally and socially generared by thar avalanche of changes? In order to try and find an answer to rhese and other questions, ]ohn Beverley, David Harvey, Phil Cohen and Dick Hebdige gave a series of lectures, a11wirhin me framework of rhe seminar Subculture and Homogenization held at rhe Fundació Anroni Tapies in 1998. The seminar arose from an inreresr in creating a forum for discussion which would establish a link berween the most advanced forms of academic rheory and rhe new ways f thinking abour hisrory and cultura from a subordinate position whose aim is to develop new lines of rhoughr about the inte acrion berween sociery and the state.