Thomas Frank has been sending wake-up calls to just about everyone within reach over the past decade, in venues from "The Village Voice" to "Harper's". His takes on labour politics, advertising, the virtues of the Midwest and how uncool you really are have won him a wide audience. In this piece, Frank gives us a reading of cultural studies - viewed by some as an important new perspective in the academy, but by others as an unwieldy theoretical fad.