Page 83 - Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies

Chapter 3
Stuart Hall, cultural studies and marxism

Colin Sparks

INTRODUCTION
The history of cultural studies is marked by continual shifts of method.
This is a normal and healthy part of any developing field of enquiry,
particularly one which has exploded geographically and institutionally in
the way that cultural studies has in the last few years. This paper is
concerned to trace two such shifts: the move towards marxism and the
move away from marxism. There need be no apology for selecting the
relation between marxism and cultural studies for special attention: for
many years it was generally believed that marxism and cultural studies
were, if not identical, at least locked into an extremely close relationship.
When, for example, Lawrence Grossberg wrote an influential essay
defining the intellectual framework of British cultural studies for its new
US audience, he claimed straightforwardly that he was discussing: ‘British
marxist cultural studies, in the works of the Birmingham Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies’ (Grossberg, 1986:61). Stuart Hall himself
had, in his outline history of the Birmingham Centre, stressed the pivotal
importance of ‘the break into a complex marxism’ as the second of the
decisive breaks which defined cultural studies in Britain (Hall, 1980a:25).
The focus of this paper will be on the contribution of Stuart Hall since,
while he is not the only important thinker in this trajectory, he has without
question been the central figure in the development of the internationally
dominant version of cultural studies. For some years, as the quotation from
Grossberg above demonstrates, to speak of cultural studies was effectively
to speak of the Birmingham University Centre for Contemporary Cultural
Studies (CCCS). It seems to me unarguably the case that Stuart Hall,
through the brilliance of his intellect and the impact of his personality, was
the driving force of CCCS. It was in the work produced during his time as
Acting Director and then Director of the Birmingham Centre that ‘marxist
cultural studies’ was born and achieved its characteristic features. He, too,
has been the central figure both in its international diffusion and in its
subsequent intellectual development.