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.
Stuart Hall (1932-2014) was one of the most prominent and influential scholars and public intellectuals of his generation. He was a prolific writer and speaker and a public voice for critical intelligence and social justice who appeared widely on British television and radio. He taught at the University of Birmingham and the Open University, was the founding editor of New Left Review, and served as the director of Birmingham's Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies during its most creative and influential decade. Jennifer Daryl Slack is Professor of Communication and Cultural Studies at Michigan Technological University. Lawrence Grossberg is Morris David Distinguished Professor of Communication and Cultural Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Table of Contents
Editor's Introduction / Lawrence Grossberg and Jennifer Daryl Slack vii Preface to the Lectures by Stuart Hall, 1988 1 Lecture 1. The Formation of Cultural Studies 5 Lecture 2. Culturalism 25 Lecture 3. Structuralism 54 Lecture 4. Rethinking the Base and Superstructure 74 Lecture 5. Marxist Structuralism 97 Lecture 6. Ideology and Ideological Struggle 127 Lecture 7. Domination and Hegemony 155 Lecture 8. Culture, Resistance, and Struggle 180 References 207 Index 211
What People are Saying About This
Returns: Becoming Indigenous in the Twenty-First Century - James Clifford
"A very timely gift. These detailed, rigorous lectures are Stuart Hall’s most sustained reckoning with the strands of Marxist theory that remain crucial for Cultural Studies. Today, at a time of decentered neoliberal hegemony, his non-reductive analysis of cultural struggle is more relevant than ever."
Seizing Freedom: Slave Emancipation and Liberty for All - David Roediger
"These wonderful lectures give us the history of the rise of Cultural Studies as seen by its greatest figure. They fiercely remind us of Stuart Hall at his best: crossing disciplinary boundaries, acknowledging inspirations, making bold claims with remarkable precision. Perhaps nowhere else do we see so clearly how Hall’s thought emerged from critical engagements with debates inside of Marxism and expressed a commitment to extend and deepen materialist analysis to cultural questions."
