Cultural Studies Now: Seminar 1 of 3 – Culture

Cultural Studies, in its British incarnation, was, in effect, the intellectual front of the political movement of the New Left. This movement became consolidated in the UK after 1956 when the Suez crisis and Soviet invasion of Hungary jointly precipitated the emergence of an anti-imperial and non-doctrinaire group of Marxist activists and intellectuals. Following his appointment in 1969 as Director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham, Stuart Hall gradually took the place of Raymond Williams as the leading intellectual voice of this loosely affiliated formation. Over the next decade, Hall worked with his colleagues and graduate students to develop a theoretical basis and critical methodology for the politically engaged analysis of culture, leading to landmark texts such as Policing the Crisis in 1978 and The Empire Strikes Back in 1982.

This seminar has three parts:
– Seminar 1: Culture – 3-5pm, 16 May 2024
– Seminar 2: Study – 3-5pm, 29 May 2024
– Seminar 3: Now – 3-5pm, 12 June 2024

It will begin by asking how British cultural studies both understood and analysed ‘culture’, before focusing on its lessons for research today. Sessions are open to all PhD students at LAHP institutions.

If possible, please commit to attend all three. I will begin each session with an introduction to some important issues raised in the readings, but the majority of the time will be given over to discussion of the texts and how they relate to your research.

Seminar 1: Culture
3-5pm, 16 May 2024
Please read:
• Hall, S. ‘The Great Moving Right Show’, Selected Political Writings: The Great Moving Right Show and Other Essays, ed. Sally Davison, David Featherstone, Michael Rustin and Bill Schwarz (Duke University Press, 2017), pp. 172-186.
Optional reading:
• Gilbert, J. ‘This Conjuncture: For Stuart Hall’, New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics, Vol. 96-97, 2019, pp. 5-37.