Understanding Contemporary Society
Lecture and Seminar Programme
Lecture 18 Multiculturalism, Difference and Identity: Stuart Hall
This lecture will explore recent debates about multiculturalism. In the aftermath
of recent “terror” attacks, the nature of a multicultural society has been subject
to serious examination. This follows a lengthy intellectual effort to get the
identities and experiences of migrants and their descendants taken seriously and
examined without recourse to distortion and simplification. No scholar contributed
more to this endeavour than the Jamaican-born intellectual Stuart Hall.
The lecture will explore how Hall took on, and redefined, some of the ideas of
Raymond Williams, within and beyond the field of cultural studies. Hall’s
treatment of identity as complex, mixed and multi-dimensional will be
emphasised.
Seminar Reading and Preparation
Hall, S. (2006) ‘Cosmopolitan Promises, Multicultural Realities’ in R. Scholar (ed.)
Divided Cities: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 2003. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 20-51.
- How might Stuart Hall’s ideas help us understand multicultural society?
- How would you describe British identity today?
- How, if at all, does your own identity relate to the idea of Britishness?
- What implications do events since September 11th 2001 and July 7th 2005 have
for multiculturalism?
- Is it easier to conceive of a multicultural city than a multicultural nation?
Further Reading
Hall, S. (1990) ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’ in J. Rutherford (ed.) Identity,
London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Hall. S. (1991) ‘Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities’ in A.D. King
(ed.) Culture, Globalisation and the World System, London: Macmillan.
Hall, S. (1992) ‘New Ethnicities’ in J. Donald and A. Rattansi (eds). Race, Culture
and Difference, London: Sage.
Hall, S. (1992) ‘The Question of Cultural Identity’ in S. Hall, D. Held and T.
McGrew (eds.) Modernity and Its Futures, Cambridge: Polity.
Hall, S. (1996) ‘Who needs identity?’ in S. Hall and P. Du Gay (eds.) Questions of
Cultural Identity, London: Sage.
Hall, S. (1997) ‘The Centrality of Culture: Notes on the Cultural Revolutions of
Our Time’ in K. Thompson (ed.) Media and Cultural Regulation, London: Sage.
Hall, S. (2000) ‘The Multicultural Question’ in B. Hesse (ed.) Unsettled
Multiculturalisms, London: Zed Books.
MacCabe, C. (2008) ‘An interview with Stuart Hall, December 2007’, Critical
Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 1-2, pp. 12-42
Gilroy, P., Grossberg, L. and McRobbie, A. (eds) (2000) Without Guarantees:
Essays in Honour of Stuart Hall, London: Verso
Meeks, B. (2007) Culture, Politics, Race and Diaspora: the thought of Stuart Hall,
Kingston: Ian Randle
Morley, D. and Chen, K. (eds) (1996) Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural
Studies, London: Routledge
Procter, J. (2004) Stuart Hall, London: Routledge.
Schwarz, B. (2005) ‘Stuart Hall’, Cultural Studies, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 176-202.
See also the special issue of the journal Cultural Studies, July 2009, Vol.
23, No. 4, discussing Stuart Hall’s legacy.
Another influential thinker in debates about multiculturalism is Paul Gilroy:
Gilroy, P. (1987) There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack, London: Hutchinson.
Gilroy, P. (2004) After Empire, London: Routledge
Gilroy, P. (2006) ‘Multiculture in times of war: An inaugural lecture given at the
London School of Economics’, Critical Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 27-45.
The theory and politics of multiculturalism
Commission for Integration and Cohesion (2007) Our Shared Future, available at
www.integrationandcohesion.org.uk
Cantle, T. (2008) Community Cohesion, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dench, G., Gavron, K. and Young, M. (2006) The New East End, London: Profile
Books.
Finney, N. and Simpson, L. (2009) ‘Sleepwalking to Segregation’?, Bristol: Policy
Press
McGhee, D. (2008) The End of Multiculturalism? Maidenhead: Open University
Press
Modood, T. (2007) Multiculturalism, Cambridge: Polity.
Parekh, B. (2006) Rethinking Multiculturalism, 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Parekh, B. (2008) A New Politics of Identity, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pilkington, A. (2008) ‘From institutional racism to community cohesion: the
changing nature of racial discourse in Britain’, Sociological Research Online,
Vol, 13, No, 3. Available at www.socresonline.org.uk/13/3/6.html
Runnymede Trust (2000) Commission on the Future of Multiethnic Britain,
London: Profile Books.
Seidler, V. (2009) Embodying Identities: culture, difference and social theory,
Bristol: Policy Press
Wetherell, M., Lafleche, M. and Berkeley, R. (eds.) (2007) Identity, Ethnic
Diversity and Community Cohesion, London: Sage.