Counterculture .

1. Counterculture.

2. Definition and characteristics. • A countercultureis a subculture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, often in opposition to mainstream cultural mores. • The term counterculture is attributed to Theodore Roszak,author of The Making of a Counter Culture. It became prominent in the news media amid the social revolution that swept North and South America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand during the 1960s and early 1970s.

3. Scholars differ in the characteristics and specificity they attribute to "counterculture". "Mainstream" culture is of course also difficult to define, and in some ways becomes identified and understood through contrast with counterculture. Counterculture might oppose mass culture (or "media culture"), or middle-class culture and values. Counterculture is sometimes conceptualized in terms of generational conflict and rejection of older or adult values.

4. Irvine Welsh • Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist, playwright and short story writer. He is recognised for his novel Trainspotting, which was later made into a critically acclaimed film of the same name. His work is characterised by a raw Scots dialect, and brutal depiction of Edinburgh life. He has also written plays and screenplays, and directed several short films.

5. Trainspotting • Trainspotting is the first novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh, first released in 1993. It takes the form of a collection of short stories, written in either Scots, Scottish English or British English, revolving around various residents of Leith, Edinburgh who either use heroin, are friends of the core group of heroin users, or engage in destructive activities that are implicitly portrayed as addictions that serve the same function as heroin addiction. The novel is set in the late 1980s and has been called "the voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent".