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Stuart Hall: Selected Writings
Cultural Studies 1983: A Theoretical History
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.
232 pages, Paperback
Published October 17, 2016
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754 people want to read
About the author
Stuart Hall
186 books399 followersStuart Hall was an influential Jamaican-born British sociologist and cultural theorist. He was Professor of Sociology at the Open University, the founding editor of New Left Review, and Director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
April 8, 2017
God I love Stuart Hall
June 26, 2017
This is probably one of the most insightful writings/lectures on cultural studies's deeply complex relationship to Marxism as well as its founding fathers like Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, and EP Thompson. I suspect that this book will become a primer for graduate students being introduced to cultural studies. Stuart Hall is by far one of the most sophisticated theorists of its earliest generation. Hall, perhaps better than anyone else, addresses the dialectics of theoretical influences that allows him to both praise certain theoretical breakthroughs and limitations. He perhaps does this best regarding Althusser and Gramsci. He clearly documents Althusser's breakthrough in establishing a much more complex base/superstructure model of cultural theory that is not overtly reductive and attempts to theorize a relative autonomy of the cultural sphere from more basic practices of the economic. Yet he also clearly charts how Althusser's insights get compromised by his overly abstract understanding, failing to take into account of historical specificity in his quixotic quest to create a scientific theory of Marxism.
I would argue that no one unpacks the theoretical and political insights of Gramsci like Hall. He admits throughout his lectures (the book is a transcription of his lectures at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1983,which have not dated at all).that Gramsci colors much of his thinking and critique of earlier theorists and the Marxist tradition. Without Gramsci, there would be no Hall. Perhaps most amazing of all is the way Hall unpacks some of Gramsci's core theoretical concepts while simultaneously asserting that they emerged from a very specific historical location so need to be revised and updated to become applicable to present conditions. He understands that Gramsci is not only a theorist, but also deeply committed politically. Because Gramsci was deeply linked to political organizing in Italy, his writing has a nuance to it that remains cautious of how specific historic conjunctures allow certain theories to bloom and the tentative nature of the applicability of any theory. To understand Hall, one must understand Gramsci. Gramsci allows Hall to theorize the semi-autonomy of racial and ethnic categories from economic ones so one does not simply dismiss such categories as secondary concerns to class struggle. Race, he states, "is not free or independent of determinations. But it is not reducible to the simple determinacy of any of the other levels of social formations in which the distinction of black and white has become politically pertinent and through which the whole ''unconsciousness' of race has been articulated."
Much like Foucault's recently translated lectures from the 1970s, Hall's 1983 lecture reasserts the intelligence not just of Hall as well as the potential of what a fully instituted cultural studies project might begin to look like if present day scholars heeded some of the insights that Hall bestowed more than 30 years ago.
I would argue that no one unpacks the theoretical and political insights of Gramsci like Hall. He admits throughout his lectures (the book is a transcription of his lectures at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1983,which have not dated at all).that Gramsci colors much of his thinking and critique of earlier theorists and the Marxist tradition. Without Gramsci, there would be no Hall. Perhaps most amazing of all is the way Hall unpacks some of Gramsci's core theoretical concepts while simultaneously asserting that they emerged from a very specific historical location so need to be revised and updated to become applicable to present conditions. He understands that Gramsci is not only a theorist, but also deeply committed politically. Because Gramsci was deeply linked to political organizing in Italy, his writing has a nuance to it that remains cautious of how specific historic conjunctures allow certain theories to bloom and the tentative nature of the applicability of any theory. To understand Hall, one must understand Gramsci. Gramsci allows Hall to theorize the semi-autonomy of racial and ethnic categories from economic ones so one does not simply dismiss such categories as secondary concerns to class struggle. Race, he states, "is not free or independent of determinations. But it is not reducible to the simple determinacy of any of the other levels of social formations in which the distinction of black and white has become politically pertinent and through which the whole ''unconsciousness' of race has been articulated."
Much like Foucault's recently translated lectures from the 1970s, Hall's 1983 lecture reasserts the intelligence not just of Hall as well as the potential of what a fully instituted cultural studies project might begin to look like if present day scholars heeded some of the insights that Hall bestowed more than 30 years ago.
March 24, 2019
Fundamental reading. It’s interesting to see how many graduate courses in the arts (including my personal experience) don’t navigate Hall’s writing as much these days. But I suppose that’s capitalist structures infiltrating university institutions.
Read
January 2, 2025Cultural Studies 1983 is a set of lectures cultural philosopher Stuart Hall gave in 1983 on the then-state of his field. Cultural studies is a grab-bag term for a multidisciplinary, social-scientific approach to studying the intersection between the creation of contemporary societies and the historical conditions that have made them possible. There is a utopian aspect to the field, too, the goal being that if we understand the conditions that make societies possible, we can understand how to transform current societies into better, more humane ones.
Hall draws upon the insights of critical philosopher Louis Althusser and political philosopher Antonio Gramsci, finding in them the inauguration of a way of studying society that he believes to be helpful for us in our efforts to understand the current moment. From Althusser, he gets the concept of ideology, which he sees as a diffuse set of organizing beliefs, many of them contradictory and unevenly distributed across populations and classes. There is not an ideology but ideologies. These belief systems always clash, vying for position to become what passes for what Gramsci calls, more than a little tongue in cheek, common sense.
The processes by which political forces clash, across physical space and in the realm of ideas, Gramsci calls hegemony. Hegemony, like ideology, is never all or nothing. At any one time, certain blocs control different aspects of culture, the state, and so on. Drawing on this idea, Hall believes that improvements to wellbeing require interventions into these contentious spaces in order to create counterhegemonies.
An example of a failure. The Hippie subculture of the 1960s was a counterhegemony to Nixon's America and to the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia. It failed to have any political vitality, however, because apart from negative showcases of freedom (dodging drafts, sit-ins), it never crystallized into a positive political bloc that threatened establishment politics. Most of the protests never got beyond university campuses, and most of the radicals of the counterculture got co-opted by the dominant culture: they became tenured professors.
Hall draws upon the insights of critical philosopher Louis Althusser and political philosopher Antonio Gramsci, finding in them the inauguration of a way of studying society that he believes to be helpful for us in our efforts to understand the current moment. From Althusser, he gets the concept of ideology, which he sees as a diffuse set of organizing beliefs, many of them contradictory and unevenly distributed across populations and classes. There is not an ideology but ideologies. These belief systems always clash, vying for position to become what passes for what Gramsci calls, more than a little tongue in cheek, common sense.
The processes by which political forces clash, across physical space and in the realm of ideas, Gramsci calls hegemony. Hegemony, like ideology, is never all or nothing. At any one time, certain blocs control different aspects of culture, the state, and so on. Drawing on this idea, Hall believes that improvements to wellbeing require interventions into these contentious spaces in order to create counterhegemonies.
An example of a failure. The Hippie subculture of the 1960s was a counterhegemony to Nixon's America and to the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia. It failed to have any political vitality, however, because apart from negative showcases of freedom (dodging drafts, sit-ins), it never crystallized into a positive political bloc that threatened establishment politics. Most of the protests never got beyond university campuses, and most of the radicals of the counterculture got co-opted by the dominant culture: they became tenured professors.
April 11, 2018
Wowwwww. My brain is so full of ideas and questions and longings to dive back into all things Marx again. Stuart Hall's lectures are groundbreaking in so many ways. He shows the limits of theory, reminding us of the dangers of fetishising terminologies, boxing ourselves into categories and schools of thought. Real real good stuff here.
May 28, 2018
A brilliant survey though. Reviewing for a journal.
November 11, 2019
"Pensadora experiente sintetiza retrospectivamente discussões teóricas articuladas com problemas práticos e políticos", um dos meu gêneros preferidos.
June 14, 2021
The first half is a historical overview of the differences between historicism and structuralism, a split that Hall traces back to Marx and Durkheim, and then through E.P. Thompson and Raymond Williams v. Levi-Strauss and Althusser. This part of the book really shines.
The second half is Hall working through Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory, without ever naming them (though he does name Gramsci). It's essentially an attack on Althusser's ahistorical structuralism and classical Marxism's base-superstructure model of class consciousness. It's okay, but I wish he dedicated a chapter to Laclau and Mouffe (as well as Foucault), to show what they were contesting, how they overcame previous inadequacies in the theorisation of class consciousness, and why he thinks discourse analysis is a retreat into idealism.
Like, if I hadn't already read some of Laclau and Mouffe, I wouldn't have known wtf Hall was saying when he used words like articulation (the chaining together of signifiers by positing them against another signifier that defies signification / is outside of signification. An example: the radical left and right, despite their positive political difference, are united against neoliberalism, through a negative difference — essentially, neoliberalism operates as the barrier to full political freedom for both left and right radicals). Signifying chains of equivalences and differences are pretty obscure / used by many structuralists to talk about very different things.
The second half is Hall working through Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory, without ever naming them (though he does name Gramsci). It's essentially an attack on Althusser's ahistorical structuralism and classical Marxism's base-superstructure model of class consciousness. It's okay, but I wish he dedicated a chapter to Laclau and Mouffe (as well as Foucault), to show what they were contesting, how they overcame previous inadequacies in the theorisation of class consciousness, and why he thinks discourse analysis is a retreat into idealism.
Like, if I hadn't already read some of Laclau and Mouffe, I wouldn't have known wtf Hall was saying when he used words like articulation (the chaining together of signifiers by positing them against another signifier that defies signification / is outside of signification. An example: the radical left and right, despite their positive political difference, are united against neoliberalism, through a negative difference — essentially, neoliberalism operates as the barrier to full political freedom for both left and right radicals). Signifying chains of equivalences and differences are pretty obscure / used by many structuralists to talk about very different things.
March 20, 2025
Context
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.
Thesis
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.
Methodology
A very interesting de-sacralization of figures like Althusser, Williams, and even Marx himself in order to point out their methodology, historical/intellectual limitations, key insights, and contribution to major questions plaguing the Marxist tradition.
Key Terms
social determinations - less in the abstract, more as you approach historical conjuncture.
Criticisms and Questions
Notes
Lecture 1: The formation of cultural studies
talks about the history of the new left review, the challenge of post-war consumer culture on challenging Marxist writ, and the base-superstructure question. Major inspiration and and methodologies are literary critical ones.
Lecture 2: Culturalism
this is an intellectual biography of Raymond Williams which, although highly critical, still celebrated his importance to cultural studies.
- changing focus of cultural studies from elite canons to popular traditions.
- social practices also include attempt to live socially in ways which reflect how we understand and experience our circumstances.
- distinctive culture emerges out of interactions between different social groups or social classes: that is the object of William's analysis: structures of feeling that are reflected or expressed in different social practices.
-first chapter of "Marxism and Literature" on language.
-how to possibly deal with structure of feeling using base-superstructure
-"this is how history presents itself— as an undifferentiated set of interwoven practices."
-dominant, residual, and emergent culture very important way to think about cultural change.
-dominant culture allows opposition to exist in the place it assigns
-makes a particular kind of break with the mechanistic definition of base and superstructure.
"to begin to generate notions of culture which are democratic, notions of culture which are popular, notions of culture which are materialist, is a real labour, and one wants to acknowledge the work and learn from it without swallowing the whole pill."
Lecture 3: Structuralism
A beautiful summary of the history and approach of structuralism.
-starts with Durkheim looking at facts of social life rather than our ideas about them.
-Language, as primary symbolic system, gives clues to wider symbolic universe of cultures.
- Whereas language uses limited set of rules to come up with near endless combinations, the same is true to any social domain (mythology for example)
-over time structuralism becomes more interested in symbolic forms themselves rather than their relationship to social structures.
-structuralist methology is more intuitive than it pretends.
-Marxism and Levi Strauss connection: marxist project as a way to discover distinct social logics of difference social formations with underlying structure creating them.
-the use of linguistics as a rich generative metaphor enables semioticians to analyze the inventory of particular culture,
-all social practices are made meaningful not by language which expresses the world, but by languages which are able to produce meaning, enabling human societies to signify. social practices do not exist outside of the meanings which different societies give to them.
Lecture 4: Rethinking the base and superstructure
This lecture focuses on the concept of base/superstructure through Marx's own thought, specifically by contrasting the much more theoretical german ideology and grundrisse intro (and communist manifesto) vs. the much more nuanced and historically specific 18th Brumaire.
Three main premises which distinguish Marx's method: 1) all historical forms are historically specific 2) principle objects of analysis are laws, tendencies, and structures of a particular mode of production 3) human societies can only be understood as result of social organization and its dependency on modes of extracting means for survival from nature.
-Marx often elaborates complex ideas and then collapses them into single sentence or image.
-two objections to base-superstructure model: economic reductionism and class reductionism.
-false consciousness is a dumb idea, ideologies have something true about them, truths people recognize.
-need to remember Marx and Engels real struggle was against idealism, still a real pull into idealism built into academic life and the structure of western thought. If you let a materialist idea alone for just a moment, you find that it has slid over to idealism. Idealism is still the most powerful language available for talking about complexity.
-Engels tried to recognize polemical context of much of Marx's writing - avoid epigones repeating as scientific truth what had been a vulgar joke in a political pamphlet.
- In Communist Manifesto classes are being continually split up until there are only two.
- 18th Brumaire explains how 1848 revolutions led to a man on a horse with a three-cornered hat.
- as you lower the level of abstraction, you come closer to the details of a particular concrete historical formation, and you have to bring in other determinations into discourse in order to make sense of what you're talking about.
-Some of the so-called silences in Marx's discourse [race, gender] are the result of the relevant level of abstraction rather than From the fact he thinks these other determinations are insignificant" -Stuart Hall in rethinking the base and superstructure
-It is against the proletariat that the bourgeois form a party built around a language of family ,law, order, and property using rural voters as base. Proletariat is anarchist other.
- 18th Brumaire built on analysis of social movements, social groupings, alliances, and blocs without clear class character, although intrinsic language remains decidedly materialist. 18th Brumaire offers alternative to base-superstructure metaphor without giving up the ground that the metaphor has won.
Lecture 5: Marxist structuralism
Lecture on the Althusserian break, talks a lot about how Althusser hardens distinctions and makes overly rigid distinctions/definitions, but has some invaluable contributions to Marxism including 1)the problem of the subject 2) nature of social formations 3) theory of determinations
Levels of Abstraction
abstract levels of how surplus value is created
historical account of things like the factory laws, where far more specific determinations (political organizations, popular morals, etc.) come into play. Human agency depends on which level of abstraction that analysis is dealing with
Althusser points out Marx's synchronic approach in mature works like Capital - we have sense of totality which is a complexly structured whole, irreducible to either humanism of historicism.
Articulates levels in the social formation: economic, politics, ideological, theoretical.
Develops non-reductionist ways of thinking about determinancy using: "overdetermination" and "relative autonomy"
displacement: the economic might be manifested in the political
structural autonomy as a concept is more coherent than relative autonomy, but less effective.
big takeaway from Althusser is that although society is a complex totality, it still has a definite structure with a "structure in dominance", not just a random assortment of sociological empirical facts.
Althusser allows us to think about "difference" in a particular way. Post-structuralism only allows for difference (Foucault), plurality of discourses, going beyond the "unity in difference". Althusser gives us "articulation": the form of a connection which allows us to make a unity of two different elements under certain conditions. Difference in complex unity. So make sure to look at not the proto-Lacanian, neo-Foucauldian, pre-Derridian, Althusserian text "ideological state apparatuses" but more generative original essays in For Marx like "On Contradiction and Overdetermination".
For revolution you need contradictions to build up and fuse into "a ruptural unity".
Structures exhibit tendencies — lines of force, openings —which constrain, channel, and in a sense "determine". But they cannot guarantee.
Lecture 6: Ideology and ideological struggle
Knowledge, whether ideological or scientific, has to be produced through a practice. It is not the reflection of the real in discourse, in language. Social relations have to be "represented in speech and language" to acquire meaning. Meaning is produced as a result of ideological or theoretical work. It is not simply a result of an empiricist epistemology.
"ideological state apparatuses" has two points 1) purpose of ideology is social reproduction 2) made through interpellation. Most work has focused on only second part (Foucult on discourse, Lacan on unconsious processes)
Language and behavior are the media, so to speak, of the material registration of ideology, the modality of its functioning. We have to deconstruct language to understand the ideological thinking which are inscribed in them.
Does not explain why there is complacency even when the state is not dictating everything. Why do journalists choose their stories and viewpoints in a democratic capitalist society.
question of reproduction assigned to Marxist (male) pole and subjectivity to the psychoanalytic (feminine) pole.
It does not follow that because all practices are in ideology, that they are nothing but ideology. Ideologies do not operate through single ideas, they are plural acting in discursive chains, in semantic fields, in discursive formations.
Social relations exist, independent of mind, independent of thought. And they can only be conceptualized in thought.
We need a much simpler and more productive way to think about ideolgy: the theory of articulation how ideology discovers its subjects rather than how the subject thinks the necessary and inevitable thoughts which belong to it. ideology empowers people, enables them to begin to make some sense of their historical situation, without reducing those forms of intelligibility to their socioeconomic or class location or social position.
"If you want to move religion, to rearticulate it in another way, you are going to come across all the grooves that have articulated it already."
"The relationship between social forces and ideology is absolutely ideological"
The moment of historical formation is critical for any semantic field. Commonsense thinking contains what Gramsci calls the traces of ideology "without an inventory"
Field of the ideological is "relatively autonomous" field of constitution, regulation, and social struggle". But it is not reducible to the simple determinancy of any of the other levels of social formations.
ideology does not only have the function of social reproduction, but sets limits to the degrees to which a society can reproduce itself. Ideology is shifting in a constant, undending process — what Volosinov called "the multiaccentuality of the ideological sign" of the "class struggle in language."
Lecture 7: Domination and hegemony
wonderful intellectual history of Gramsci.
Ideology consists of two floors: coherent theoretical explanation of an ideology / its common sense practical consciousness. New ideologies must compete in a realm already filled with other popular conceptions and viewpoints.
common sense ideas are "themselves material forces"
consciousness is not an individual matter but a relationship between self and ideological discourses which compose the cultural terrain of a society. Hegemony entails the formation of a bloc, not the appearance of a class.
Victory is seizing the balance of power on each of the fronts of struggle. The balance of political, social, and ideological forces at each point in the social formation. Few in the left have understood, but the bourgeoisie had done beautifully.
Lecture 8: Culture, resistance, and struggle.
the field of ideological discourse are neither organized nor are directly reducible to economic class positions.
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.
Thesis
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.
Methodology
A very interesting de-sacralization of figures like Althusser, Williams, and even Marx himself in order to point out their methodology, historical/intellectual limitations, key insights, and contribution to major questions plaguing the Marxist tradition.
Key Terms
social determinations - less in the abstract, more as you approach historical conjuncture.
Criticisms and Questions
Notes
Lecture 1: The formation of cultural studies
talks about the history of the new left review, the challenge of post-war consumer culture on challenging Marxist writ, and the base-superstructure question. Major inspiration and and methodologies are literary critical ones.
Lecture 2: Culturalism
this is an intellectual biography of Raymond Williams which, although highly critical, still celebrated his importance to cultural studies.
- changing focus of cultural studies from elite canons to popular traditions.
- social practices also include attempt to live socially in ways which reflect how we understand and experience our circumstances.
- distinctive culture emerges out of interactions between different social groups or social classes: that is the object of William's analysis: structures of feeling that are reflected or expressed in different social practices.
-first chapter of "Marxism and Literature" on language.
-how to possibly deal with structure of feeling using base-superstructure
-"this is how history presents itself— as an undifferentiated set of interwoven practices."
-dominant, residual, and emergent culture very important way to think about cultural change.
-dominant culture allows opposition to exist in the place it assigns
-makes a particular kind of break with the mechanistic definition of base and superstructure.
"to begin to generate notions of culture which are democratic, notions of culture which are popular, notions of culture which are materialist, is a real labour, and one wants to acknowledge the work and learn from it without swallowing the whole pill."
Lecture 3: Structuralism
A beautiful summary of the history and approach of structuralism.
-starts with Durkheim looking at facts of social life rather than our ideas about them.
-Language, as primary symbolic system, gives clues to wider symbolic universe of cultures.
- Whereas language uses limited set of rules to come up with near endless combinations, the same is true to any social domain (mythology for example)
-over time structuralism becomes more interested in symbolic forms themselves rather than their relationship to social structures.
-structuralist methology is more intuitive than it pretends.
-Marxism and Levi Strauss connection: marxist project as a way to discover distinct social logics of difference social formations with underlying structure creating them.
-the use of linguistics as a rich generative metaphor enables semioticians to analyze the inventory of particular culture,
-all social practices are made meaningful not by language which expresses the world, but by languages which are able to produce meaning, enabling human societies to signify. social practices do not exist outside of the meanings which different societies give to them.
Lecture 4: Rethinking the base and superstructure
This lecture focuses on the concept of base/superstructure through Marx's own thought, specifically by contrasting the much more theoretical german ideology and grundrisse intro (and communist manifesto) vs. the much more nuanced and historically specific 18th Brumaire.
Three main premises which distinguish Marx's method: 1) all historical forms are historically specific 2) principle objects of analysis are laws, tendencies, and structures of a particular mode of production 3) human societies can only be understood as result of social organization and its dependency on modes of extracting means for survival from nature.
-Marx often elaborates complex ideas and then collapses them into single sentence or image.
-two objections to base-superstructure model: economic reductionism and class reductionism.
-false consciousness is a dumb idea, ideologies have something true about them, truths people recognize.
-need to remember Marx and Engels real struggle was against idealism, still a real pull into idealism built into academic life and the structure of western thought. If you let a materialist idea alone for just a moment, you find that it has slid over to idealism. Idealism is still the most powerful language available for talking about complexity.
-Engels tried to recognize polemical context of much of Marx's writing - avoid epigones repeating as scientific truth what had been a vulgar joke in a political pamphlet.
- In Communist Manifesto classes are being continually split up until there are only two.
- 18th Brumaire explains how 1848 revolutions led to a man on a horse with a three-cornered hat.
- as you lower the level of abstraction, you come closer to the details of a particular concrete historical formation, and you have to bring in other determinations into discourse in order to make sense of what you're talking about.
-Some of the so-called silences in Marx's discourse [race, gender] are the result of the relevant level of abstraction rather than From the fact he thinks these other determinations are insignificant" -Stuart Hall in rethinking the base and superstructure
-It is against the proletariat that the bourgeois form a party built around a language of family ,law, order, and property using rural voters as base. Proletariat is anarchist other.
- 18th Brumaire built on analysis of social movements, social groupings, alliances, and blocs without clear class character, although intrinsic language remains decidedly materialist. 18th Brumaire offers alternative to base-superstructure metaphor without giving up the ground that the metaphor has won.
Lecture 5: Marxist structuralism
Lecture on the Althusserian break, talks a lot about how Althusser hardens distinctions and makes overly rigid distinctions/definitions, but has some invaluable contributions to Marxism including 1)the problem of the subject 2) nature of social formations 3) theory of determinations
Levels of Abstraction
abstract levels of how surplus value is created
historical account of things like the factory laws, where far more specific determinations (political organizations, popular morals, etc.) come into play. Human agency depends on which level of abstraction that analysis is dealing with
Althusser points out Marx's synchronic approach in mature works like Capital - we have sense of totality which is a complexly structured whole, irreducible to either humanism of historicism.
Articulates levels in the social formation: economic, politics, ideological, theoretical.
Develops non-reductionist ways of thinking about determinancy using: "overdetermination" and "relative autonomy"
displacement: the economic might be manifested in the political
structural autonomy as a concept is more coherent than relative autonomy, but less effective.
big takeaway from Althusser is that although society is a complex totality, it still has a definite structure with a "structure in dominance", not just a random assortment of sociological empirical facts.
Althusser allows us to think about "difference" in a particular way. Post-structuralism only allows for difference (Foucault), plurality of discourses, going beyond the "unity in difference". Althusser gives us "articulation": the form of a connection which allows us to make a unity of two different elements under certain conditions. Difference in complex unity. So make sure to look at not the proto-Lacanian, neo-Foucauldian, pre-Derridian, Althusserian text "ideological state apparatuses" but more generative original essays in For Marx like "On Contradiction and Overdetermination".
For revolution you need contradictions to build up and fuse into "a ruptural unity".
Structures exhibit tendencies — lines of force, openings —which constrain, channel, and in a sense "determine". But they cannot guarantee.
Lecture 6: Ideology and ideological struggle
Knowledge, whether ideological or scientific, has to be produced through a practice. It is not the reflection of the real in discourse, in language. Social relations have to be "represented in speech and language" to acquire meaning. Meaning is produced as a result of ideological or theoretical work. It is not simply a result of an empiricist epistemology.
"ideological state apparatuses" has two points 1) purpose of ideology is social reproduction 2) made through interpellation. Most work has focused on only second part (Foucult on discourse, Lacan on unconsious processes)
Language and behavior are the media, so to speak, of the material registration of ideology, the modality of its functioning. We have to deconstruct language to understand the ideological thinking which are inscribed in them.
Does not explain why there is complacency even when the state is not dictating everything. Why do journalists choose their stories and viewpoints in a democratic capitalist society.
question of reproduction assigned to Marxist (male) pole and subjectivity to the psychoanalytic (feminine) pole.
It does not follow that because all practices are in ideology, that they are nothing but ideology. Ideologies do not operate through single ideas, they are plural acting in discursive chains, in semantic fields, in discursive formations.
Social relations exist, independent of mind, independent of thought. And they can only be conceptualized in thought.
We need a much simpler and more productive way to think about ideolgy: the theory of articulation how ideology discovers its subjects rather than how the subject thinks the necessary and inevitable thoughts which belong to it. ideology empowers people, enables them to begin to make some sense of their historical situation, without reducing those forms of intelligibility to their socioeconomic or class location or social position.
"If you want to move religion, to rearticulate it in another way, you are going to come across all the grooves that have articulated it already."
"The relationship between social forces and ideology is absolutely ideological"
The moment of historical formation is critical for any semantic field. Commonsense thinking contains what Gramsci calls the traces of ideology "without an inventory"
Field of the ideological is "relatively autonomous" field of constitution, regulation, and social struggle". But it is not reducible to the simple determinancy of any of the other levels of social formations.
ideology does not only have the function of social reproduction, but sets limits to the degrees to which a society can reproduce itself. Ideology is shifting in a constant, undending process — what Volosinov called "the multiaccentuality of the ideological sign" of the "class struggle in language."
Lecture 7: Domination and hegemony
wonderful intellectual history of Gramsci.
Ideology consists of two floors: coherent theoretical explanation of an ideology / its common sense practical consciousness. New ideologies must compete in a realm already filled with other popular conceptions and viewpoints.
common sense ideas are "themselves material forces"
consciousness is not an individual matter but a relationship between self and ideological discourses which compose the cultural terrain of a society. Hegemony entails the formation of a bloc, not the appearance of a class.
Victory is seizing the balance of power on each of the fronts of struggle. The balance of political, social, and ideological forces at each point in the social formation. Few in the left have understood, but the bourgeoisie had done beautifully.
Lecture 8: Culture, resistance, and struggle.
the field of ideological discourse are neither organized nor are directly reducible to economic class positions.
May 31, 2017
Notes from C.S:
Hall (1989) contends that Gramsci did in fact not limit himself to theory, and that he was aware of the ever-continuous changes in living conditions. In this respect, Hall warns against reading Gramsci (as well as Marxism) from a fixed and reduced point of view, and opt, instead, for making use of the input provided in Marxist readings with the intention not being so much geared towards theorizing, but rather towards developing better insight of what happens as a result of combining, as well as dividing, values that come into play when forming societies. The effects of such unities and divisions are particularly relevant for Hall in establishing better understanding of racism and discrimination.
Furthermore, Hall (1989) points out, through Gramsci’s analysis, that what shapes up society does not have a static nature but historical fractions that have been grounded, through bits and pieces, and that have had long-lasting effects on perception and of what makes up various social norms and notions, or, in what Gramsci refers to as “common sense.” This common sense is more or less what guides people on how to live their lives. In that respect, people are not always aware of their own exploitation. In fact, not only are people often unaware of the pre-determined ideas that the states often build themselves on, but they are especially unaware of their own contribution in serving the state’s discourse. The state discourse, therefore, is not to be regarded as an independent force, but rather as an organic entity that is dependent in every way on the collective acceptance of ideology.
Slack (1996) also clarifies the complex nature of how the world is shaped and governed, and recognizes, through readings of Hall and others, the importance of comprehending how articulation cannot be limited to one general whole and merged into one theory. Instead, it is made up of a combination of fractions that are neither static nor permanent. Articulation, as Slack (1996) observes, is the avoidance of reductionism: Just like reductionist economics is a trap, so is reductionist culture. Articulation, therefore, is the realization of the other possibilities that come into play when considering theoretical frameworks. Hegemony, in that respect, and as Gramsci sees it, is not to be restricted to class or economy alone, but must instead be understood as the articulation of interests, geared by ideology, to create one common sense. In other words, the acquired bits and pieces (that are lined with religion, ethics, folklore, culture and such,) form the ideology that creates this one big “common sense” (the hegemony), and getting there most often involves a struggle between domination and subordination.
Hall (1989) contends that Gramsci did in fact not limit himself to theory, and that he was aware of the ever-continuous changes in living conditions. In this respect, Hall warns against reading Gramsci (as well as Marxism) from a fixed and reduced point of view, and opt, instead, for making use of the input provided in Marxist readings with the intention not being so much geared towards theorizing, but rather towards developing better insight of what happens as a result of combining, as well as dividing, values that come into play when forming societies. The effects of such unities and divisions are particularly relevant for Hall in establishing better understanding of racism and discrimination.
Furthermore, Hall (1989) points out, through Gramsci’s analysis, that what shapes up society does not have a static nature but historical fractions that have been grounded, through bits and pieces, and that have had long-lasting effects on perception and of what makes up various social norms and notions, or, in what Gramsci refers to as “common sense.” This common sense is more or less what guides people on how to live their lives. In that respect, people are not always aware of their own exploitation. In fact, not only are people often unaware of the pre-determined ideas that the states often build themselves on, but they are especially unaware of their own contribution in serving the state’s discourse. The state discourse, therefore, is not to be regarded as an independent force, but rather as an organic entity that is dependent in every way on the collective acceptance of ideology.
Slack (1996) also clarifies the complex nature of how the world is shaped and governed, and recognizes, through readings of Hall and others, the importance of comprehending how articulation cannot be limited to one general whole and merged into one theory. Instead, it is made up of a combination of fractions that are neither static nor permanent. Articulation, as Slack (1996) observes, is the avoidance of reductionism: Just like reductionist economics is a trap, so is reductionist culture. Articulation, therefore, is the realization of the other possibilities that come into play when considering theoretical frameworks. Hegemony, in that respect, and as Gramsci sees it, is not to be restricted to class or economy alone, but must instead be understood as the articulation of interests, geared by ideology, to create one common sense. In other words, the acquired bits and pieces (that are lined with religion, ethics, folklore, culture and such,) form the ideology that creates this one big “common sense” (the hegemony), and getting there most often involves a struggle between domination and subordination.
October 23, 2022
This is a really wonderful and clearly delivered set of lectures on the relatively recent history of Cultural Studies as a discipline at the time the lectures were delivered. Hall balances his attention between institutional spaces as well as 'real world' historical events, which brings him to perform a sort of cultural studies reading aimed towards the institutionalization of this discursive sphere. Readers should know that large chunks of his analysis are focused around Marxism, if anything would be worth critiquing. Its almost a recent history of Marxism rather than Cultural Studies, or at least I could see someone delivering that critique, but the two fields are quite intertwined so it wasn't much of an issue for me. Some key thinkers discussed include Raymond Williams, Althusser, Gramsci, and, of course, Marx. One could argue that the lectures are not nearly concerned enough with the interactions between Feminist discourse and Cultural Studies (aside from a small passage from Lecture 6 critiquing Althusser's "Ideological State Apparatuses" essay), and, looking back, that is one of the main hindrances that contributes to a creeping discursive monotony by the time one hits the final two lectures. But, with that being said, I still found this quite generative for my own thinking, especially on the issues of articulation and avoiding class reductionism with Marxist analytics. I would especially recommend this for anyone interested in the relationship between literary and cultural studies or the impacts of Raymond Williams and Althusser within critical theory spheres.
July 24, 2025
Probably the most lucid, direct, and useful treatments of the field of Cultural Studies I've ever read. I've been trying to return to the fundamentals and fill in all the blank spaces left by a scattered and incomplete education. This seems like the absolute best choice I could have made. It's particularly helpful how much Hall is willing to delve into his citations, such that I never felt taken out of the work or left behind by the rate at which he referenced other thinkers. The deftness with which he jumps between the theoretical and the concrete is impressive, and constantly reinforced his point that the two are inextricable. The logical structure of the whole work is masterful, piece-by-pievce constructing a method before zeroing in on an example of its use; a material proof of its effectiveness. What a delight!
January 16, 2024
For anyone looking to dive into cultural studies, this is a great 101 book to read. It uses the marxist ideology of the capitalist production system to explain concepts like labor, social conditioning... While not being like actually about communism in any way. That isn't the point of the book. It's giving let's escape the matrix vibes. It's kind of like the bible of cultural studies in a way.. At least it is mine. Most notable topics of discussion for me were hegemony and domination of culture, resistance, and ideological struggle. It talks a lot about discourse and the use of it as a means of control. I'm not gonna explain the book you just have to read it. But you should. Its great
February 26, 2021
It's always a joy (though often a challenging joy) to read Stuart Hall. An incredible collection of humbly delivered insights and reflections on the history, theories, developments, directions, importance and potential for Cultural Studies. While Hall has blind spots and primarily engages with (and pushes the bounds of) European Marxist theory, there is lots of rich material. My favorite lectures were Lecture 6, "Ideology and Ideological Struggle," and Lecture 8, "Culture, Resistance, and Struggle."
August 9, 2022
Read this in my main Cultural Studies course with Dr. Andrea Hawkman.
Hall is incredible and the patterns of power that he observes as well as the rules he follows of contextualization are helpful ways to analyze and think about in separate contexts (he is British, but also notes some American examples).
Brilliant theorizing.
I could see this being helpful in my own conceptual framework if I lean heavily into Cultural Studies cores.
Hall is incredible and the patterns of power that he observes as well as the rules he follows of contextualization are helpful ways to analyze and think about in separate contexts (he is British, but also notes some American examples).
Brilliant theorizing.
I could see this being helpful in my own conceptual framework if I lean heavily into Cultural Studies cores.
April 17, 2023
He ate!!!! Honestly this book is better than a semester of university for explaining and articulating cultural studies and structural Marxism. Hall is so clear and articulate in a way that can be quite rare in structuralist literature. There are obvious gaps, but that's to be expected with such a short volume. Highly highly recommend though, shocked Hall isn't discussed more in British academia but here we are!
April 3, 2024
To be honest, I had no clue what Cultural Studies was talking about much of the time, but it still tickled my brain enough for me to keep going. It strikes me as an interesting analysis of the ways in which cultural identities are formed and interact with social and political processes. The lectures are also an effective and important rebuke of the kind of economic reductionism that still, to the movement's detriment, plagues leftist circles today.
December 27, 2019
Critical race theory. Dense
April 5, 2020
Recall that these lectures were in 1983
October 28, 2024
lecture notes; more like Hall's own attempt to reconstruct a marxist theory of culture, society, and politics; great coverage with sustained rigour
March 19, 2025
god this book rules
January 30, 2017
Una compilación de interesantes ensayos de Stuart Hall. Personalmente, me encanta cuando Hall habla de su propia experiencia y del complejo proceso de formación de nuevas identidades, como es el caso de la jamaicana. Es anecdótico el pasaje en el que Hall cuenta que tuvo que aprender que en Jamaica era "coloured", mientras que en Inglaterra era "black". Cuando intentó explicarle a su hijo que ellos eran "black", su hijo, desde la inocencia de la infancia, le respondió que más bien eran "brown" si tenían en cuenta un espectro real de colores.
Hall debate con brillante astucia las lecturas marxianas de Althusser y de Gramsci. Nos ayuda a comprender cuáles son los problemas de reduccionismo a la hora de familiarizarnos con la teoría marxista auténtica, tratando de evitar las versiones manidas que nos alejan de la real visión que Marx trata de transmitirnos.
En "Cultural Studies" Hall aprovecha para debatir conceptos problemáticos --y necesarios para este campo--, como el de cultura, hegemonía o identidad, entre otros.
Una lectura muy recomendable para entender de primera mano, y sin edulcorantes, cuáles son las cuestiones que ocupan a los Estudios Culturales.
Hall debate con brillante astucia las lecturas marxianas de Althusser y de Gramsci. Nos ayuda a comprender cuáles son los problemas de reduccionismo a la hora de familiarizarnos con la teoría marxista auténtica, tratando de evitar las versiones manidas que nos alejan de la real visión que Marx trata de transmitirnos.
En "Cultural Studies" Hall aprovecha para debatir conceptos problemáticos --y necesarios para este campo--, como el de cultura, hegemonía o identidad, entre otros.
Una lectura muy recomendable para entender de primera mano, y sin edulcorantes, cuáles son las cuestiones que ocupan a los Estudios Culturales.
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May 29, 2019This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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