What do we mean when we use the term cultural policy? It’s a question academics have been mulling over for decades and it is one that certainly bears repeating.
At a 1999 meeting of Princeton University’s Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies Faculty and Student Affiliates, members made reference to a 1983 paper, ‘What are Cultural Policy Studies: And Why Do We Need Them?’ by Professor Paul Di Maggio, Research Director of the Department of Sociology. Meanwhile, Lawrence Rothfield, Faculty Director of the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago was compelled to respond to objections presented against the term by both members of the public and academic colleagues, publishing ‘Cultural Policy Studies?! Cultural Policy Studies?! Cultural Policy Studies?! : A Guide for Perplexed Humanists’‘ in 1999.