Stuart Hall
Ben Carrington
March 7, 2017
Stuart Hall: In Conversations revisits the life and work of the Jamaican-born cultural theorist, Stuart Hall, a key figure in the foundation of the field of Cultural Studies. Through interviews, music, and audio archives, this program examines the political and historical context that shaped Stuart Hall’s ideas. From the 1950s until his death in 2014, […]
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February 14, 2017
Listen back to our Views and Brews discussion from December 13, 2016 with KUT’s Rebecca McInroy, along with sociologist Ben Carrington, art historian Cherise Smith, and journalist Steven Thrasher of The Guardian. They talk about the life and legacy of Stuart Hall and take audience questions. Who was Stuart Hall? What can his ideas teach […]
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January 30, 2017
In this interview, Ben Carrington, Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, interviews Roderick Ferguson, Professor of African American and Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, about his relationship to the work of Stuart Hall. In the words of Ferguson, he was introduced to Stuart and Catherine […]
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January 9, 2017
Steven Thrasher is a writer for the guardian and a PhD student in American Studies at New York University. In this conversation with University of Texas Sociology Professor Ben Carrington, Thrasher discusses his first encounter with Stuart Hall’s work. The interview provides insight into Hall’s intellectual reach. Thrasher shares how his engagement with Hall comes […]
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December 26, 2016
Imani Perry is a Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. In this conversation with University of Texas Sociology Professor Ben Carrington, Perry discusses Hall’s work as foundational for her own intellectual trajectory as a cultural theorist. Likewise, Perry addresses Hall’s relevance for understanding a U.S. context by noting that the questions Hall asks […]
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November 25, 2016
In her interview with University of Texas Professor Ben Carrington, Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore reflects on her experience with Stuart Hall while she wrote for Marxism Today, a British political magazine published under the editorship of Martin Jacques from 1977–1991. Moore explains that she came to the magazine having completed a cultural studies degree but […]
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November 15, 2016
In his interview with Gary Younge, editor at large for The Guardian, UT Austin Professor Ben Carrington begins with a reflection on Younge’s article following Stuart Hall’s passing entitled, “Stuart Hall: A Class Warrior and a Class Act.” Younge praises Hall for not being interested in sounding clever or performing academic stardom. This is particularly […]
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October 27, 2016
Situated on Goldsmiths, University of London campus, this conversation between Ben Carrington, Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and Les Back, Professor of Sociology at Goldsmith’s, University of London, considers the contributions that Stuart Hall made to the field of cultural studies and the loss that has been felt since his […]
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About
Stuart Hall: In Conversations, hosted by Dr. Ben Carrington, revisits the life and work of the Jamaican-born cultural theorist. Stuart Hall is a key figure in the foundation of the field of cultural studies.
Through interviews, music and audio archives, this program examines the political and historical context that shaped Hall’s ideas.
From the 1950s until his death in 2014, Hall was a world-renowned black public intellectual, known for his role in establishing the New Left in Britain, his groundbreaking analysis of Thatcherism, and his dialogical understanding of culture and representation.
Hall saw politics in a range of human formations, from the mundane and everyday to the global expansion of free market capitalism. He argued that culture should be understood both as a site for the reproduction of dominant ideologies, as well as a location for resisting power and claiming new identities.
Hall’s visionary understandings of neoliberalism and what he called “authoritarian populism” are worth revisiting today in an era of racially charged nationalism, evidenced by the 2016 Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, Marine Le Pen’s rise in popularity in France, and the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States.
Ben Carrington
Ben Carrington is an associate professor of sociology and journalism in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. Professor Carrington is widely regarded as one the world’s leading authorities on the sociology of race, politics and popular culture. Prior to joining Annenberg, Professor Carrington taught in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin for 13 years, and before that he worked at the University of Brighton in England. He is also a Visiting Carnegie Research Fellow at Leeds Beckett University. Outside of Annenberg, Professor Carrington holds courtesy appointments with USC’s Department of Sociology and the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity.
Professor Carrington studies a broad range of topics generally concerned with mapping the circulation and reproduction of power within contemporary post/colonial societies. More specifically, he is interested in how ideologies of race, gender, class and nationalism shape — and are themselves shaped by — cultural forms and practices, and how popular culture is often a key site of both cultural resistance and domination. His work examines the mass media and sport as way to understand key sociological dimensions of everyday life as well as focusing on how racialized, gendered and classed social structures constrain and enable social life.
Professor Carrington teaches various undergraduate and graduate courses on cultural sociology, post/colonial theory and race, media studies and journalism, and sports studies and media. He also supervises both masters and doctoral students.
He has published numerous articles and essays on these topics, as well as four books, including the critically-acclaimed Race, Sport and Politics: The Sporting Black Diaspora (Sage, 2010). In addition to his scholarly publications, Professor Carrington is a public sociologist who has authored op-eds for publications such as The Guardian and The Huffington Post, he regularly appears in the news media as a commentator on race, culture and politics, and has written and presented a documentary on the life and legacy of Stuart Hall for public radio in the US.
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