Introduction to Stuart Hall

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Howe ◽  
Stuart Hall
Keyword(s):  
Culture Media ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
The Public ◽  
Black British ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
Stuart Hall ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Tv Show

Stuart Hall has inspired, influenced, and often provoked at least two generations of scholars and activists, across Britain and far beyond. He has held distinguished academic positions in both Cultural Studies (a discipline, or discourse, in whose making and remaking he has been a central figure) and Sociology. But his ideas and their impact have not been, and could not be, confined to any disciplinary mould, nor to the academic world alone. He has written on and been a significant and original voice in debates on popular culture, media and the arts, Thatcherism and the future of the Left, Marx and Gramsci, modernism and postmodernism, racial theories and race relations, concepts of diaspora, globalization, ethnicity, identity, and hybridity—and even that is just a near-random selection from among the themes that his work has addressed. His influence may be encountered, his name invoked, among artists and film-makers, especially younger black British ones, as well as academics. Strikingly, in a recent poll seeking to rank the ‘100 Greatest Black Britons’, Hall was the only living intellectual to feature at all prominently (at no. 10) among musicians, sportspeople, and TV personalities. This polymathic presence does not, however, extend to absolute ubiquity: it should be pointed out that the presenter of the once-popular TV show ‘It’s a Knockout’ was an entirely different Stuart Hall. Our Stuart Hall is, on the face of it, very much a ‘public intellectual’. This is a label more familiar in America than in Britain, and one which sometimes seems to mean ‘glib, media-friendly polemicist’. That is clearly not Hall at all, and perhaps the idea of the public intellectual fits him better if it is redefined: not (just) as someone who appears frequently in the public sphere, but as one whose efforts have always been directed towards defending and extending that sphere, its integrity, democracy, and inclusiveness. It is an ethical as well as a political endeavour. Hall’s lifelong adherence to it, no less than the subject-matter and intellectual power of his essay here, makes him an apt choice to open this collection of Oxford Amnesty Lectures.

Abraham Heschel

2021 ◽  
pp. 198-216
Author(s):  
Susannah Heschel
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
West Side ◽  
Reinhold Niebuhr ◽  
The Public ◽  
Prophetic Voice ◽  
The Public Sphere

The friendship between Abraham Joshua Heschel and Reinhold Niebuhr was both personal and intellectual. Neighbours on the Upper West Side of New York City, they walked together in Riverside park and shared personal concerns in private letters; Niebuhr asked Heschel to deliver the eulogy at his funeral. They were bound by shared religious sensibilities as well, including their love of the Hebrew Bible, the irony they saw in American history and in the writings of the Hebrew prophets, and in their commitment to social justice as a duty to God. Heschel arrived in the public sphere later, as a public intellectual with a prophetic voice, much as Niebuhr had been for many decades prior. Niebuhr’s affirmation of the affinities between his and Heschel’s theological scholarship pays tribute to an extraordinary friendship of Protestant and Jew.

scholarly journals Dementia and literature

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 439-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Vassilas
Keyword(s):  
Scar Tissue ◽  
First Person ◽  
Iris Murdoch ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Jewish Migration ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
Four Books ◽  
Person Account ◽  
The Uk

As we doctors are beginning to understand more and more about dementia, the public has become increasingly aware of the condition and in turn this has been reflected in the arts. This article discusses four books whose main focus is the experience of dementia, each written from an entirely different perspective: a novel giving a first-person account of dementia by the Dutch writer J. Bernlef; a biography of the famous novelist Iris Murdoch by her husband John Bayley; Linda Grant's account of her mother's multi-infarct dementia (which also describes Jewish migration to the UK two generations ago); and Michael Igniateff's autobiographical novel Scar Tissue. Such accounts, offering insights into how patients and carers feel, cannot but help make us better doctors.

Ambiguities and Clichés in the Debate about Public Intellectuals

2007 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Misztal
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
New Left ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
The Public ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper's purpose is to exam Turner's (2006a) thesis that Britain neither produced its own public intellectuals nor a distinctive sociology. It aims to outline difficulties with the logic of Turner's argument rather than to discuss any particular public intellectual in Britain. The paper argues that Turner's claim about the comparative insignificance of public intellectuals in Britain reinforces the myth of British exceptionalism and overlooks the significance of the contribution to the public sphere by intellectuals from other disciplines than sociology. It discusses Turner's assumption that intellectual innovation requires massive disruptive and violent change and suggests that such an assertion is not necessarily supported by studies of the conditions of the production of knowledge. Finally, the paper argues that Turner's anguish at the absence of public intellectuals among sociologists in Britain is symptomatic of New Left thinking that models the idea of the intellectual on Gramsci. In conclusion, the paper asserts that Turner's idea of the intellectual fails to note the tension at the heart of the role of public intellectual–the tension between specialist and non-specialist functions.

Père Trump

October ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 159 ◽  
pp. 3-6
Author(s):  
Hal Foster
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Fourth Estate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Higher Power ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Public Sphere

In the face of Trumpism and its peculiar mix of the buffoonish and the lethal, Foster suggests that we “pump up” past theoretical concepts by raising them to a higher degree. Social media, for example, could thereby be considered the “fifth estate,” a force that outdoes the “fourth estate” of journalistic media and thereby evacuates the last residues of the public sphere that, over fifty years ago, Jürgen Habermas associated with the advent of print culture. Peter Sloterdijk's notion of cynical reason, too, must be raised to a higher power in order to comprehend the Trumpist mentality; perhaps in this post-truth era, we should speak instead of “noncynical unreason”? And while the concept of the “primal father” is so outrageous that it cannot be inflated, Foster argues, it is one that we must grapple with in the face of a figure who, like Freud's figure, embodies the law and simultaneously performs its transgression.

Weimar Bodies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ute Planert
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Weimar Republic ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Human Reproduction ◽  
Gainful Employment ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Gendered Bodies ◽  
The Public Sphere

Like the arts and politics, sexuality, bodies, and the gender order in the Weimar Republic were sites of experimentation in and with modernity. The First World War and the revolution had accelerated the breakthrough of women into arenas such as politics, the public sphere, and professional gainful employment. Big cities provided space for sexual libertinage, in which the transgression of heterosexual norms was possible. A rationalization of sexuality took place, which combined increased freedoms and liberties with attempts at regulation. Sports became an important transmission belt for ideas of discipline, efficiency, and self-optimization. The Weimar welfare state combined the entitlement to live a healthy life with the duty to actively retain the health of one’s body. The latter included considering future generations via eugenicist ideas. A far-reaching consensus on the value of eugenics emerged, yet only under the pressure of the world economic crisis did it materialize in concrete proposals to recalibrate social policy. The final years of the Weimar Republic were marked by a remasculinization of the public sphere and a partial return to more traditional views on gender roles. Overall, gender and gendered bodies, sexuality and human reproduction, were inherent elements of the political conflicts that shaped modern society. At the end of the Weimar Republic, they were more contested than ever.

To Have and To Hold … Or Not? Deaccessioning Policies, Practices, and the Question of the Public’s Interest

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-159
Author(s):  
Deandra Rose Mann
Keyword(s):  
Financial Distress ◽  
Art Museum ◽  
George Washington ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
National Gallery Of Art ◽  
Washington University ◽  
Arts Community

Abstract:Shockwaves echoed through the media and the arts community when the Delaware Art Museum chose to deaccession pieces from its collection and when the public learned that the Detroit Institute of Arts might be forced to do the same. Further concern arose when financial troubles compelled the Corcoran Gallery of Art to merge with the National Gallery of Art and George Washington University. An examination of the climate and legal battles surrounding these events shows how these institutions chose to cope with the financial adversity that put their collections at risk and illustrates the precarious position of works in a museum’s collection when that museum experiences financial distress. This article explores the ethical, judicial, and legislative frameworks currently governing deaccessioning and ultimately advocates for new legislative solutions to guide the deaccession process in order to provide the opportunity to maintain these works in the public sphere.

scholarly journals Sobre o resgate promovido por Habermas do projeto Kantiano de Aufklärung / On the rescue promoted by Habermas of the Kantiano de Aufklärung project

Profanações ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 192
Author(s):  
João Elter Borges Miranda ◽  
Wiliam Carlos Cipriani Barom
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Communicative Action ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
The Public ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Face ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Main Representative ◽  
The Public Sphere

Jürgen Habermas (1929-) é um filósofo alemão e um dos mais influentes sociólogos do pós-guerra. Conhecido por suas teorias sobre o agir comunicativo e a esfera pública, é reconhecido internacionalmente como o principal representante da chamada “segunda geração” da Escola de Frankfurt. Também é considerado um dos mais importantes intelectuais contemporâneos. No presente trabalho, objetivamos refletir sobre o resgate promovido por este filósofo do projeto kantiano de esclarecimento (Aufklärung); movimento realizado em contraposição a tradição nietzschiana herdada por Adorno e Horkheimer, os quais entendem que, frente as aporias do mundo contemporâneo, esse projeto de emancipação nos termos apontados por Kant estaria dissipado.AbstractJürgen Habermas (1929-) is a German philosopher and one of the most influential postwar sociologists. Known for his theories on communicative action and the public sphere, he is internationally recognized as the main representative of the so-called "second generation" of the Frankfurt School. He is also considered one of the most important contemporary intellectuals. In the present work, we aim to reflect on the rescue promoted by this philosopher of the Kantian project of enlightenment (Aufklärung); movement against the Nietzschean tradition inherited by Adorno and Horkheimer, who understand that, in the face of the aporias of the contemporary world, this project of emancipation in the terms pointed out by Kant would be dissipated.

scholarly journals Poetics of Refraction

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 35-45
Author(s):  
Christian Rossipal
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Face ◽  
Experimental Approaches ◽  
European Refugee Crisis ◽  
The Public Sphere

Reduced to temporary guests, victims, threats, or enemies, those who are forced to seek refuge have to navigate a political minefield. To seek recognition in the public sphere is an especially treacherous endeavor under these conditions. Faced with a range of imposed identities–including the refugee label itself–the quest for “more visibility” through documentary images is fraught with contradictions for the displaced. This article considers the ways in which filmmakers and artists with experience of displacement work with documentary methods and forms in the face of these extreme difficulties. As they challenge and seek alternatives to conventional forms of documentary, a range of new expressions and tendencies can be discerned in the wake of “The European Refugee Crisis,” from so-called participatory documentary to essayistic and more experimental approaches. The article discusses, among other films, Purple Sea (2020), Midnight Traveler (2019), and My New European Life (2019).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document