Overview

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.

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Reviews

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. -- James Clifford, author of Returns: Becoming Indigenous in the Twenty-First Century 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. -- David Roediger, author of Seizing Freedom: Slave Emancipation and Liberty for All Hall's lectures from 1983 appear to be a peculiar event of appropriation-a fundamental attempt to retain Marx as a nondisposable basis for cultural studies by means of a meticulous, well-informed, and earnest guarding of his heritage from vulgar and reductive misreadings. The volume itself is a praiseworthy enterprise of retaining this hallmark of theoretical history and making accessible at least some of Hall's works, otherwise scattered across less-known collections and anthologies. . -- Sergiy Yakovenko H-Russia, H-Net Reviews The collection is inspiring and comprehensive, covering, for example, the birth of Cultural Studies, Marxist structuralism and Hall's crucial post-Gramscian work on hegemony... Hall's collection of lectures is persuasive, galvanising and feels both timeless and timely, despite its posthumous status. -- Sofia Ropek Hewson LSE Review of Books Hall's metier was to tease out the competing histories, the contradictory political, economic, and social forces condensed within a particular historical moment, an excavation of ideology he called 'conjunctural analysis.' ... [H]is work is all too timely, for the haphazard project of neoliberalism, justified retroactively by nonsensical appeals to the 'free market,' is as advanced as the decades-long economic decline it magics away with bubbles and rhetoric (GDP balloons; personal wealth stagnates). -- Michael Robbins Bookforum

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. -- James Clifford, author of Returns: Becoming Indigenous in the Twenty-First Century 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. -- David Roediger, author of Seizing Freedom: Slave Emancipation and Liberty for All Hall's lectures from 1983 appear to be a peculiar event of appropriation-a fundamental attempt to retain Marx as a nondisposable basis for cultural studies by means of a meticulous, well-informed, and earnest guarding of his heritage from vulgar and reductive misreadings. The volume itself is a praiseworthy enterprise of retaining this hallmark of theoretical history and making accessible at least some of Hall's works, otherwise scattered across less-known collections and anthologies. . -- Sergiy Yakovenko H-Russia, H-Net Reviews The collection is inspiring and comprehensive, covering, for example, the birth of Cultural Studies, Marxist structuralism and Hall's crucial post-Gramscian work on hegemony... Hall's collection of lectures is persuasive, galvanising and feels both timeless and timely, despite its posthumous status. -- Sofia Ropek Hewson LSE Review of Books

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. -- James Clifford, author of Returns: Becoming Indigenous in the Twenty-First Century 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. -- David Roediger, author of Seizing Freedom: Slave Emancipation and Liberty for All

Cultural Studies 1983 is a cogent summation of the most influential modern theories that have grappled with and tried to explain the dynamics of unequal societies and the cultures they produced. -- Shonaleeka Kaul * Frontline * Hall's metier was to tease out the competing histories, the contradictory political, economic, and social forces condensed within a particular historical moment, an excavation of ideology he called 'conjunctural analysis.' . . . [H]is work is all too timely, for the haphazard project of neoliberalism, justified retroactively by nonsensical appeals to the 'free market,' is as advanced as the decades-long economic decline it magics away with bubbles and rhetoric (GDP balloons; personal wealth stagnates). -- Michael Robbins * Bookforum * The collection is inspiring and comprehensive, covering, for example, the birth of Cultural Studies, Marxist structuralism and Hall's crucial post-Gramscian work on hegemony. . . . Hall's collection of lectures is persuasive, galvanising and feels both timeless and timely, despite its posthumous status. -- Sofia Ropek Hewson * LSE Review of Books * Hall's lectures from 1983 appear to be a peculiar event of appropriation-a fundamental attempt to retain Marx as a nondisposable basis for cultural studies by means of a meticulous, well-informed, and earnest guarding of his heritage from vulgar and reductive misreadings. The volume itself is a praiseworthy enterprise of retaining this hallmark of theoretical history and making accessible at least some of Hall's works, otherwise scattered across less-known collections and anthologies. . -- Sergiy Yakovenko * H-Russia, H-Net Reviews * 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. -- David Roediger, author of * Seizing Freedom: Slave Emancipation and Liberty for All * 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. -- James Clifford, author of * Returns: Becoming Indigenous in the Twenty-First Century *

Author Information

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.

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