International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

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Stuart Hall (1932–) is a cultural theorist, scholar, mentor, and critic of contemporary politics and → modernity , whose work has profoundly shaped the advancement of → cultural studies as an intellectual and interventionist practice. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Hall moved in 1951 to Bristol, England, as part of the Windrush generation, and later entered Merton College, University of Oxford, on a Rhodes Scholarship to study literature. His years at Oxford saw him develop an acute interest in socialist British history, nationalist “West Indian” thought, international left politics, and continental philosophy. In the 1950s and 1960s, after working on Universities and Left Review (with Charles Taylor, Raphael Samuel, and Gabriel Pearson), he joined E. P. Thompson, Raymond Williams, and others to launch the New Left Review . Hall published The popular arts (with Paddy Whannel) in 1964. As a result, Richard Hoggart invited him to join the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. In 1968, Hall succeeded Hoggart as director of the influential Centre, a position he held until 1979. While at the Centre, Hall's prolific writings included Situating Marx: Evaluations and departures (1972), Encoding and decoding in the television discourse (1973), Reading of Marx's 1857 introduction to the Grundrisse (1973), Resistance through rituals (1976), ... log in or subscribe to read full text