‘Identity is an endless ever unfinished conversation.’

Stuart Hall

Born in 1932 in Kingston (Jamaica), Stuart Hall was a leading cultural theorist, activist and founder of the New Left Review. Having won a Rhodes scholarship, he came to Britain to study in Oxford in 1951. Hall worked at the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham to head it up in 1972. Subsequently, the Center grew into a groundbreaking institution and platform in the realms of cultural studies. In 1979 he became professor of sociology at the Open University, Milton Keynes.

Beside academia, Hall’s activities were also dedicated to black arts as well as to public education in multicultural issues, drawing from contemporary art and photography by chairing for instance Autograph (the Association of Black Photographers) and the International Institute of Visual Arts (INIVA).

The history of his life and work was recently produced by the film-maker John Akomfrah, in the form of a film/installation The Unfinished Conversation (2012), and in a widely distributed film, The Stuart Hall Project (2013).

His publications include Resistance Through Rituals (1975); Culture, Media, Language (1980); Politics and Ideology (1986); The Hard Road to Renewal (1988); New Times (1989); Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (1996); and Different: A Historical Context: Contemporary Photographers and Black Identity (2001).

Stuart Hall passed away aged 82 in London on February 10, 2014.