Two or three nights ago I dreamed I was in London to hear
Stuart Hall give a talk. Unfortunately there were the usual oneiric shenanigans
and I didn't get further than the lobby. A missed opportunity, I thought at the
time. Too true. And now he is gone. But Hall is here in my lecture notes for my freshman media and
culture course, and here again in the opening weeks of my grad class in
qualitative methods, and here again in the turn of a question, in the wrestle
with a theory, in a commitment to think us a bit further down the road, and in the
commitment to do work that matters.
I remember sitting in a lecture hall at the University of
Illinois, almost a quarter century ago now, listening to Hall give the talk
that would become his essay, “Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies,” with
its struggles with Althusser and the cry, "Against the urgency of people
dying in the streets, what in God's name is the point of cultural studies?” I remember as well the time I spent that
summer with Hall's warm, rich voice resonating in my headset as I transcribed that
talk for the subsequent book.
His was what Melissa Gregg once called one of cultural
studies’ affective voices. And it will be sorely missed.
