"Anyone whose work is informed, 'in the last instance, ' by Cultural Studies will find much that is helpfully familiar in it as well as new connections, new applications, new ways of '[penetrating] the disorderly surface of things to another level of understanding, ' as Hall says, invoking Marx, in the epilogue. This seems especially urgent as the ascendancy of the far Right coincides with the wholesale neoliberalization of the humanities, as Hall predicted in his 'Theoretical Legacies' lecture. It is obviously not a question of 'going back' to Hall for a truer or more 'authentic' form of Cultural Studies than that in practice today. But there is much in his legacy that illuminates the dynamics of the present, and much to put into dialogue with contemporary scholarship and practice. Morley's collection reminds us how important it is for genuine intellectual work to articulate competing and contradictory paradigms together, to work, as Hall did, from the points of contestation and conflict rather than seek solace in abstractions. This, finally, is the 'essential' in the essays assembled here." –Liane Tanguay "American Book Review" (11/1/2019 12:00:00 AM)
