Marx, and Marxism as method in Stuart Hall’s thinking
Hiroki OGASAWARA
ABSTRACT The task here is to consider what I would call Stuart Hall’s theoretical “legacy” in the field of social and cultural thoughts. As a materialist of articulation rather than of reductionism, Hall taught us how to profoundly understand and intensely describe the “concrete” in cultural and social fields. The “concrete,” according to Hall, is a result of “non-necessary correspondence” between various forces, relations and situations, that is, the contingent and articulated determination in history. In my view, he was after all a Marxist in this sense. In the earlier stage of his thinking, Hall was very much indulged in reading and learning from Marx. This is characteristic in his “Marx’s Notes on Method: A Reading of the 1857 ‘Introduction.’” His Marxism then showed a unique twist in later stage, which was explicitly expressed in his article “Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and the Post-Structuralist Debate.” Reading these two texts, the piece aims to comprehend the way Hall has read with Marx and the resonated thoughts. His lesson conducts us to tackling our on-going agendas in this half-dead Capitalist world, such as the crisis of culture, subjectivity and politics.
KEYWORDS: Marx, the concrete, articulation, no necessary correspondence
Note on the contributor
Hiroki Ogasawara, Professor in Media and Cultural Studies, Graduate School of Intercultural Studies, Kobe University, Japan. Having completed his PhD at Goldsmiths College, University of London, he has been extensively writing on Stuart Hall, cultural studies, and race and racism in football both in English and Japanese while translating Hall’s work into Japanese. His latest publication is セルティック・ファンダム―スコットランドのサッカーと政治 [Celtic fandom—football and politics in Scotland]. 2017. Tokyo: Serica Shoboせりか書房.