Studies On Stuart Hall In Anglo-American Academia:New Materials And New Perspectives

Stuart Hall was one of the most influential cultural theorists in Britain in the twentieth century.Chinese Academia began to do the research on Stuart Hall at the turn of the 21 st century following Anglo-American academia.At present,Chinese Academia has formed a systematic research pedigree to Stuart Hall’s theory.These ideas are regarded with esteem in the field of cultural research,Marxism research and media research.At the same time,new progress on the study of Stuart Hall has been made in the United Kingdom and the United States.Especially when Hall passed away in 2014,researchers in Anglo-American Academia admired him,memorized him and found a lot of new materials.The studies on Stuart Hall by British and American scholars are no longer confined to Cultural Studies.They emphasize the multi-perspective discussion and research on thoughts,historical contribution,post-colonial identity and realistic context.They have formed an interdisciplinary style.The researchers in China and Anglo-American academia used different study methods aiming at above topics to gain the new materials and promote the development.Based on the method of the theory of variation of comparative literature,the author has collected a large number of research literatures on Stuart Hall both at home and abroad,making a comparative study on the differences between China and Anglo-American Academia.The thesis is divided into seven chapters.The first six chapters take the way of thematic comparison,introducing the new materials and new perspectives according to the difference of study on Hall made by Chinese and British researchers.The last chapter adopts the method of overall comparison discussing the cultural roots of such differences.The author has three purposes to achieve in writing this paper,which is to pass on the new materials and perspectives to the study on Stuart Hall in the academia of Britain and the United States;to summarize the hot topics of the study on Stuart Hall;to compare the local study characteristics on Stuart Hall,pointing out their differences and generality.It is necessary for us to refer to the research methods and develop the study on Hall based on the differences in China and Anglo-American academia.The first chapter,“The Study on Hall’s life in Anglo-American Academia",is intended to show the new progress in collecting Hall’s life materials in the academia of Britain and the United States.This chapter generally summarizes the three stages of the study on Hall’s life research abroad,especially focusing on the newly-published and widely influential memoir Familiar Strangers and the biography Stuart Hall Project.The second chapter,"The Study on Hall’s Identity Research in Anglo-American Academia",aims at the problem of the simplification of the study on Hall’s identity in China.This part systematically combs its complex relationship among social identity,intellectual identity and national cultural identity in the study on Hall’s Identity in Anglo-American academia.Without continuing the single evaluation method to Hall’s identity by academic achievements in China,this chapter chooses to focus on the conflicts among his individual life,academic achievement and national identity,and to discuss the dislocation of his self-identity and external evaluation.The third chapter,"The Study on Hall’s critical style in Anglo-American Academia",introduces the researchers’ evaluation to Hall’s criticism style.This chapter summarizes the criticism of Hall’s dialogical style,critical form and the style of working,especially focusing on the unique interpretation of Hall’s ethical meaning among British and American scholars.The fourth chapter,"The Study on Hall’s thoughts in Anglo-American Academia",introduces the new perspectives of Hall’s thoughts from three aspects:the study of ideological context,ideological structure and ideological characteristics,while the research method to Hall’s thoughts in China is simpilied.Our study on the connection role that context plays in Hall’s writing,on the core position of "aggregation analysis" and the development of racial thoughts,and on the interpretation from different angles to Hall’s thoughts in terms of diaspora aesthetics,anti-essentialism and detailed reading to texts is relatively static.It stays mainly as the supporting material of Hall’s culture theory.But researcher’s interpretation perspective in the academia of Britain and the United States is meticulous and diverse.The fifth chapter,"The Application of Hall’s Thoughts in Contemporary Anglo-American Academia",aims at the absence problem to Hall’s practical research in his native country.It is divided into two sections to comment on the application to Hall’s thoughts in the new context of social transformation and media innovation in the academia of Britain and the United State,emphasizing the contemporary vitality of Hall’s thoughts.The sixth chapter,"The Study on Hall’s Cultural Practice in the Anglo-American Academia",aims at the problem that the study on Stuart Hall in China neglects Hall’s cultural practice.This chapter arranges Hall’s left-wing practical materials in a timeline.Especially,it introduces the newest study which focuses on the spacial meaning of Hall’s practice in his early years and the historical contribution of Hall’s black art practice in his late years.The seventh chapter,"Overall Analysis: A Parallel Comparison on Hall’s Studies in Anglo-American Academia",reviews the differences between the study on Stuart Hall in China and Anglo-American Academia.This chapter summarizes the characteristics of research purpose and research path of these two districts.It finally points out that our study on Hall should respect the differences,absorb the new material and develop a new method different from Western Style in order to promote our Chinese researchers’ study on Hall.In the conclusion part,the paper goes back to the method of comparative literature variation,reviews the new material and new perspective of the whole article,emphasizes again the writing purpose of “Taking others as a mirror and looking at oneself”.The author points out that it is unavoidable that the study on Hall in China is different from that in the Anglo-American Academia.What’s more important is that we should realize the reasons why the differences happens,then think about what should be insisted and what should be rejected.This is also the benefit of reflecting Hall’s academic history with the method of comparative literature variation.