ABSTRACT
STUART HALL, ONE OF THE FOUNDING MEMBERS OF THE BRITISH CULTURAL STUDIES movement, is a sociologist who has written extensively on a variety of subjects dealing with race, culture, identity, and class. Once a secondary school teacher, this activist and scholar was an early editor of the New Left Review and directed the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham (CCCS) from 1968 to 1979. His theoretical works have analyzed culture, race, and identity in society and in the mass media. Now “retired,” he is professor emeritus of sociology at the Open University. The development of Althusserian and Gramscian theories of ideology and hegemony as well as ethnographic work and media studies at the CCCS can be attributed to Hall’s leadership. Moreover, his writings have contributed to the complex meanings for the term race and the formation of identities in multiracial Britain. Black feminist film theorist Lola Young (1996) correctly points out that black gender issues are not adequately addressed by male or white female theorists. Thus, not surprisingly, Hall does not directly address the lives of black women. However, he has contributed greatly to the development of theories of hegemony and the state and, more recently, to film theory. Hall has also contributed to helping retheorize racial and ethnic identities. His theorizing underscores the increasing awareness of the complexity of subject positions and the fluidity of categories.
