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**laverte** · 10-02-2014, 15:29

Stuart Hall

A big loss, this one. The Hoggart-Williams-Hall cultural studies lineage must be Britain's most important contribution to post-war social sciences, and now it is orphaned.

The obituary linked above rightly emphasises Hall's influence, and his extraordinary presence, both in person and in the fields of study that he helped to nurture. But most academics are associated with one particular work or idea � at best, a couple � on which they trade, and which sort of haunts them, for the rest of their career. Hall was such a polymath within the social sciences, and his thinking so profoundly stressed the complexity and density of the ideologies that were its object, that the obituary cannot really find One Great Theory to tie him to.

What shines out for me is how he is able to deconstruct, with impressive clarity (in a field that is known for the density of its jargon), many of the great ideological systems of our era � race, class, power itself � by investigating how they sustain themselves, while never overlooking their complexity and dynamism, nor their vulnerability to subversion and resistance. Reading Hall, one is torn at the most straightforward level between a daunting feeling that such ideologies are invincible and an encouraging awareness that they are really terribly fragile.

RIP.

**Satchmo Distel** · 10-02-2014, 15:36

Stuart Hall

His BBC2 programmes for the Open University were very important to alerting me to the existence of sociology, which I eventually decided would be my career. He also played a big role in making Gramsci popular in British sociology, and his graduates included Paul Gilroy among others. Some of his ideas now seem like common sense, such as the fact that race and class always exist in combination, never separately, but they only seem like common sense because he explained them so clearly and fluently. A colossus.

**Bored Of Education** · 10-02-2014, 17:19

Stuart Hall

Bloody hell, the low brow amongst us were confused by that reaction

**MsD** · 10-02-2014, 17:37

Stuart Hall

A hero to me, too. RIP.

Nice analysis, laverte.

**Guy Profumo** · 10-02-2014, 18:02

Stuart Hall

Bored of Education wrote: Bloody hell, the low brow amongst us were confused by that reaction

Please tell me you hadn't confused him with the IBF World champion too?

**Tony C** · 10-02-2014, 20:18

Stuart Hall

Bored of Education wrote: Bloody hell, the low brow amongst us were confused by that reaction

Oh indeed.

**Moonlight Shadow** · 10-02-2014, 20:26

Stuart Hall

He is so going to have his headstone painted over with "paedo"...poor chap.

**Bored Of Education** · 10-02-2014, 20:29

Stuart Hall

I hope you don't mean me. I always double check before I paint "Paedo" on a headstone.

Relevant to the opening post, I was intrigued to discover that, apparently, Hall first coined "Thatcherism"

**MsD** · 17-02-2014, 20:14

Stuart Hall

There's a short tribute film available to watch on the BFI website.

Go to www.bfi.org.uk and select Stuart Hall Experience.

This tribute is worth reading.

http://africasacountry.com/in-gratitude-to-stuart-hall-a-socialist-intellectual-who-taught-us-to-confront-the-political-with-a-smile/

I always think of him as a smiley and gentle soul.

**Sits** · 17-02-2014, 20:23

Stuart Hall

"And the expression won't change!" any more.

RIP to an engaging and entertaining man.

**delicatemoth** · 18-02-2014, 11:49

Stuart Hall

Last night Radio 3 repeated a conversation with Hall as a tribute. A very twinkling voice, he had.

**laverte** · 10-04-2014, 20:24

Stuart Hall

myself wrote: The Hoggart-Williams-Hall cultural studies lineage must be Britain's most important contribution to post-war social sciences, and now it is orphaned.

I jumped the gun there. Apparently The uses of literacy has never been out of print. Not a lot of sociology textbooks share that honour.

RIP, even if I thought you already were R'ing in P.

**Geoffrey de Ste. Croix** · 12-04-2014, 10:15

Stuart Hall

The comparison between the ersatz online grief tsunami which greeted the death of Peaches Geldof and the microscopic amount of attention the death of Richard Hoggart has received, pretty much proves Hoggart's thesis in his last book Mass Media In A Mass Society.

**Evariste Euler Gauss** · 12-04-2014, 10:28

Stuart Hall

No, it doesn't prove anything of the sort, or even get close. The thing you say is "proved" may happen to be perfectly true, but that isn't any kind of proof of it.

I'd be the last to disagree with the proposition that Hoggart was a great and hugely admirable man who produced highly significant writings which ought to be better known, or with the proposition that Peaches Geldof was trivial as a public figure and got far too much attention, but the attempted contrast there is ludicrous. PG was a 25 year old mother of two infants, RH was a 95 year old. The former's death was horribly tragic and will have caused deep pain and trauma to her family and much natural upset to others close to her. RH's death was in the perfectly natural order of things, good innings and so on. That alone is enough to make the contrast meaningless as a purported illustration of anything.

The tragedies in RH's life were mainly in his childhood, although seeing his son predecease him at the age of 68 can't have been great either.

**Geoffrey de Ste. Croix** · 12-04-2014, 10:50

Stuart Hall

Of course, you are missing my point.

I�m not comparing the death of a 25 year old woman with a 95 year old man as an equal tragedy, I�m referring to the old and new media reaction to their deaths. Hoggart�s last book analysed the rise and vacuity of youth and celebrity culture and the erosion and sidelining of intellectualism in contemporary media output. This despite the unprecedented levels of information and output available. The reaction both online and traditional media to both deaths this week substantiates Hoggart�s point.

**Evariste Euler Gauss** · 12-04-2014, 11:16

Stuart Hall

And you're missing my point, if you seriously think I was accusing you of considering the two deaths to be "equal tragedy". All I was saying is that the massive inequality in the tragedy factor is an uncontrolled variable which makes any attempt to contrast the column inches devoted to deaths of highbrow and lowbrow individuals meaningless. Edit: "25 year old dies" is usually, to some degree, news. "95 year old dies" usually isn't.

**Geoffrey de Ste. Croix** · 12-04-2014, 11:46

Stuart Hall

Even taking into consideration the �tragedy factor�, it's a cop out to say you cannot compare the amount of coverage a (for want of a better term) highbrow and lowbrow death gets, of course you can, it is the entire point. The Guardian for instance, a traditional highbrow newspaper with a significant online presence, devoted headline after headline to Geldof�s death followed by at least three puff pieces in the Comment Is Free section along the lines of �What Peaches death means to me�.

Since Hoggart�s death there has been one obituary. The Guardian, which styles itself as more intellectual than most and an organ which in the past would have self identified with Hoggart�s output (as well as having a son who wrote for it for years), is entirely typical of the approach of the old highbrow media today- The Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian etc. This is exactly the argument Hoggart made in the book I alluded to. Highbrow output and analysis has been eroded across all forms of media and been replaced by the banal, the sensationalist and the vacuous. The blanket media coverage of Geldof�s sad death in these organs as well as other media is proof positive.

If there is one death that deserves a discussion, debate and forum and higher profile, it is Hoggart�s and the legacy he leaves. His entire oeuvre was dedicated to the analysis of popular culture and the role that media plays. The overlooking of Hoggart�s legacy by both new and old media and the absolute overkill on the death of Geldof unfortunately proves Hoggart�s point entirely- that despite having unprecedented levels of information, access and sophistication of technology, popular culture and media has been dumbed down immeasurably.

The attention Geldof�s death received was ridiculous and the amount of inattention Hoggart�s received was equally so.

**Evariste Euler Gauss** · 12-04-2014, 13:09

Stuart Hall

The attention Geldof�s death received was ridiculous and the amount of inattention Hoggart�s received was equally so.

I don't disagree with you on either count.

**Max Payne** · 14-04-2014, 07:14

Stuart Hall

Humanity peaked. If we survive a few hundred thousand years, or maybe a couple of hundred, we're all going to slowly start devolving into fish.