Cultural Studies 1983

The publication of Cultural Studies 1983 is a touchstone event in the history of Cultural Studies and a testament to Stuart Hall's unparalleled contributions. The eight foundational lectures Hall delivered at the University of Illinois in 1983 introduced North American audiences to a thinker and discipline that would shift the course of critical scholarship. Unavailable until now, these lectures present Hall's original engagements with the theoretical positions that contributed to the formation of Cultural Studies. Throughout this personally guided tour of Cultural Studies' intellectual genealogy, Hall discusses the work of Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, and E. P. Thompson; the influence of structuralism; the limitations and possibilities of Marxist theory; and the importance of Althusser and Gramsci. Throughout these theoretical reflections, Hall insists that Cultural Studies aims to provide the means for political change.

The publication of Cultural Studies 1983 is a touchstone event in the history of Cultural Studies and a testament to Stuart Hall's unparalleled contributions. The eight foundational lectures Hall delivered at the University of Illinois in 1983 introduced North American audiences to a thinker and discipline that would shift the course of critical scholarship. Unavailable until now, these lectures present Hall's original engagements with the theoretical positions that contributed to the formation of Cultural Studies. Throughout this personally guided tour of Cultural Studies' intellectual genealogy, Hall discusses the work of Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, and E. P. Thompson; the influence of structuralism; the limitations and possibilities of Marxist theory; and the importance of Althusser and Gramsci. Throughout these theoretical reflections, Hall insists that Cultural Studies aims to provide the means for political change.

From his arrival in Britain in the 1950s and involvement in the New Left, to founding the field of cultural studies and examining race and identity in the 1990s and early 2000s, Stuart Hall has been central to shaping many of the cultural and political debates of our time. Essential Essays—a landmark two-volume set—brings together Stuart Hall's most influential and foundational works. Spanning the whole of his career, these volumes reflect the breadth and depth of his intellectual and political projects while demonstrating their continued vitality and importance. Volume 1: Foundations of Cultural Studies focuses on the first half of Hall's career, when he wrestled with questions of culture, class, representation, and politics. This volume's stand-out essays include his field-defining “Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies"; the prescient “The Great Moving Right Show,” which first identified the emergent mode of authoritarian populism in British politics; and “Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse,” one of his most influential pieces of media criticism. As a whole, Volume 1 provides a panoramic view of Hall's fundamental contributions to cultural studies.

Selected Political Writings gathers Stuart Hall's best-known and most important essays that directly engage with political issues. Written between 1957 and 2011 and appearing in publications such as New Left Review and Marxism Today, these twenty essays span the whole of Hall's career, from his early involvement with the New Left, to his critique of Thatcherism, to his later focus on neoliberalism. Whether addressing economic decline and class struggle, the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the politics of empire, Hall's singular commentary and theorizations make this volume essential for anyone interested in the politics of the last sixty years.

Race: the sliding signifier -- Ethnicity and difference in global times -- Nations and diasporas

This new textbook addresses the neglect of practical research methods in cultural studies. It provides readers with clearly written overviews of research methods in cultural studies, along with guidelines on how to put these methods into operation. It advocates a multi-method approach, with students drawing from a pool of techniques and approaches suitable for their own topics of investigation.The book covers the following main areas:* Drawing on experience, and studying how narratives make sense of experience.* Investigating production processes in the cultural industries, and the consumption and assimilation of cultural products by audiences and fans.* Taking both quantitative and qualitative approaches to the study of cultural life.* Analysing visual images and both spoken and written forms of discourse.* Exploring cultural memory and historical representation.

From his arrival in Britain in the 1950s and involvement in the New Left, to founding the field of cultural studies and examining race and identity in the 1990s and early 2000s, Stuart Hall has been central to shaping many of the cultural and political debates of our time. Essential Essays—a landmark two-volume set—brings together Stuart Hall's most influential and foundational works. Spanning the whole of his career, these volumes reflect the breadth and depth of his intellectual and political projects while demonstrating their continued vitality and importance. Volume 2: Identity and Diaspora draws from Hall's later essays, in which he investigated questions of colonialism, empire, and race. It opens with “Gramsci's Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity,” which frames the volume and finds Hall rethinking received notions of racial essentialism. In addition to essays on multiculturalism and globalization, black popular culture, and Western modernity's racial underpinnings, Volume 2 contains three interviews with Hall, in which he reflects on his life to theorize his identity as a colonial and diasporic subject.

Throughout his career Stuart Hall engaged with Marxism in varying ways, actively rethinking it to address the political and cultural exigencies of the moment. This collection of Hall's key writings on Marxism surveys the questions central to his interpretations of and investments in Marxist theory and practice. It includes Hall's readings of canonical texts by Marx and Engels, Gramsci, and Althusser; his exchanges with other prominent thinkers about Marxism; his use of Marxist frameworks to theorize specific cultural phenomena and discourses; and some of his later work in which he distanced himself from his earlier attachments to Marxism. In addition, editor Gregor McLennan's introduction and commentary offer in-depth context and fresh interpretations of Hall's thought. Selected Writings on Marxism demonstrates that grasping Hall's complex relationship to Marxism is central to understanding the corpus of his work.