Stuart Hall: Re-reading Cultural Identity, Diaspora, and Film

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on Stuart Hall's interdisciplinary theoretical work on race, class, and representation in 1980s Britain and his engagement with the wider arts and film culture. In this postcolonial and postwar period of U.K. history, Hall's theoretical work on emerging cultural identity, his role as public intellectual and connotative presence on the TV screen, and frequent interventions into public debate helped shape and advance the development of emerging Black identity in Britain. This article explores the ways in which Hall's work accomplished these things from the 1980s through the development of cultural theory, while also raising key questions on the role of film art in the formation and articulation of Black diaspora identity. There is further inquiry into the role of experimental and conventional forms of cinematic language for the development and expression of emerging identity in 1980s Britain, and the role of public and private funding for the development of Black British cinema. Hall's work and engagement with social justice remain relevant for broader understandings of historical conjunctures, and for progressive readings of emergent sub-cultures and representational forms resistant to cultural hegemony in corporate media societies.

KEYTERMS:

• film
• identity
• representation
• ethnicity
• critical theory