Influential cultural theorist, campaigner and founding editor of the New Left Review
When the writer and academic Richard Hoggart founded the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University in 1964, he invited Stuart Hall, who has died aged 82, to join him as its first research fellow. Four years later Hall became acting director and, in 1972, director. Cultural studies was then a minority pursuit: half a century on it is everywhere, generating a wealth of significant work even if, in its institutionalised form, it can include intellectual positions that Hall could never endorse.
The foundations of cultural studies lay in an insistence on taking popular, low-status cultural forms seriously and tracing the interweaving threads of culture, power and politics. Its interdisciplinary perspectives drew on literary theory, linguistics and cultural anthropology in order to analyse subjects as diverse as youth sub-cultures, popular media and gendered and ethnic identities – thus creating something of a model,...
When the writer and academic Richard Hoggart founded the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University in 1964, he invited Stuart Hall, who has died aged 82, to join him as its first research fellow. Four years later Hall became acting director and, in 1972, director. Cultural studies was then a minority pursuit: half a century on it is everywhere, generating a wealth of significant work even if, in its institutionalised form, it can include intellectual positions that Hall could never endorse.
The foundations of cultural studies lay in an insistence on taking popular, low-status cultural forms seriously and tracing the interweaving threads of culture, power and politics. Its interdisciplinary perspectives drew on literary theory, linguistics and cultural anthropology in order to analyse subjects as diverse as youth sub-cultures, popular media and gendered and ethnic identities – thus creating something of a model,...
- 2/11/2014
- by David Morley, Bill Schwarz
- The Guardian - Film News
Stuart Hall, the so-called 'godfather of multiculturalism' changed Britain for the better even while he showed us the ugly truth about our racist society
"The very notion of Great Britain's 'greatness' is bound up with empire," Stuart Hall once wrote. "Euro-scepticism and Little Englander nationalism could hardly survive if people understood whose sugar flowed through English blood and rotted English teeth."
For the Jamaican-born intellectual, who was one of the Windrush generation, – the first large-scale immigration of West Indians to the capital after world war two – that rottenness was unmissable. Hall came to that rotten land with its in-part slave-generated wealth from Kingston in 1951 as a Rhodes scholar to study at Oxford. "Three months at Oxford persuaded me that it was not my home," he told the Guardian in 2012. "I'm not English and I never will be. The life I have lived is one of partial displacement. I came to...
"The very notion of Great Britain's 'greatness' is bound up with empire," Stuart Hall once wrote. "Euro-scepticism and Little Englander nationalism could hardly survive if people understood whose sugar flowed through English blood and rotted English teeth."
For the Jamaican-born intellectual, who was one of the Windrush generation, – the first large-scale immigration of West Indians to the capital after world war two – that rottenness was unmissable. Hall came to that rotten land with its in-part slave-generated wealth from Kingston in 1951 as a Rhodes scholar to study at Oxford. "Three months at Oxford persuaded me that it was not my home," he told the Guardian in 2012. "I'm not English and I never will be. The life I have lived is one of partial displacement. I came to...
- 2/11/2014
- by Stuart Jeffries
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★☆☆ John Akomfrah's documentary about leading cultural theorist Stuart Hall offers a vivid portrait of the Jamaican-born academic, who was at the centre of the New Left movement. Exploring this integral figure, The Stuart Hall Project (2013) dexterously employs the use of archive footage, reminding us of the man's contribution to the shaping of modern British society. Today, Hall's prominence has diminished, even if his theories haven't. For those of us who aren't old enough to remember, it's almost a revelation to learn that he once was a frequent figure on our television screens, discussing issues of gender, race and identity.
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Hall was more commonly seen on the high-brow shows. This being the case, Akomfrah's considered documentary reminds those who lived through the same era, as well as introducing a new generation to this enigmatic man and his impact in what is undeniably a fitting, although perhaps a touch too reverential,...
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Hall was more commonly seen on the high-brow shows. This being the case, Akomfrah's considered documentary reminds those who lived through the same era, as well as introducing a new generation to this enigmatic man and his impact in what is undeniably a fitting, although perhaps a touch too reverential,...
- 9/6/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
In this absorbing documentary tribute, the pioneer of cultural studies comes across as a calm figure who insists on the fundamental topic of equality
John Akomfrah's film is a tribute to the critic and New Left Review founder Stuart Hall – a montage of existing documentary footage and Hall's own words and thoughts on film. It has an idealism and high seriousness that people might not immediately associate with the subject Hall pioneered: cultural studies. This is not about, say, postmodern readings of Lady Gaga, but a deeply considered project that reconsiders culture and identity for those excluded from the circles of power through race, gender and class. His is the progressive tradition of Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, unfashionable since Margaret Thatcher dismantled the welfarist consensus. Akomfrah finds a new and quietly moving significance in Hall's own life story: a man who came from Jamaica – which Hall elegantly calls...
John Akomfrah's film is a tribute to the critic and New Left Review founder Stuart Hall – a montage of existing documentary footage and Hall's own words and thoughts on film. It has an idealism and high seriousness that people might not immediately associate with the subject Hall pioneered: cultural studies. This is not about, say, postmodern readings of Lady Gaga, but a deeply considered project that reconsiders culture and identity for those excluded from the circles of power through race, gender and class. His is the progressive tradition of Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, unfashionable since Margaret Thatcher dismantled the welfarist consensus. Akomfrah finds a new and quietly moving significance in Hall's own life story: a man who came from Jamaica – which Hall elegantly calls...
- 9/5/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The erstwhile star of Cats returns to watch some young successors in Calder Valley where he took summer acting courses as a young man. Josh Elderfield reports
Actor Brian Blessed, who played in the original West End production of Cats, is returning to his acting roots in Yorkshire to see a production of the show featuring children from the Calder Valley Youth Theatre later this month.
Blessed, who played Bustopher Jones and Old Deuteronomy in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1981 classic, will be at the opening night at the Halifax Playhouse on 14 November. The show, performed by youth theatre members between the ages of eight and 18, will run at the Playhouse for four nights.
Blessed, the son of a miner and strong socialist from Mexborough in South Yorkshire, came to the Calder Valley in the 1950s as a 'summer student' at Calder high school. He was entranced by the drama classes...
Actor Brian Blessed, who played in the original West End production of Cats, is returning to his acting roots in Yorkshire to see a production of the show featuring children from the Calder Valley Youth Theatre later this month.
Blessed, who played Bustopher Jones and Old Deuteronomy in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1981 classic, will be at the opening night at the Halifax Playhouse on 14 November. The show, performed by youth theatre members between the ages of eight and 18, will run at the Playhouse for four nights.
Blessed, the son of a miner and strong socialist from Mexborough in South Yorkshire, came to the Calder Valley in the 1950s as a 'summer student' at Calder high school. He was entranced by the drama classes...
- 11/1/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
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