Lawrence & Wishart Book Launch: Stuart Hall's Selected Political Writings

Selected Political Writings gathers best-known and most important political essays by Stuart Hall one of the major intellectuals of post-war Britain. Written between 1957 and 2011 and appearing in publications such as New Left Review and Marxism Today, these twenty essays span the whole of Hall's career, from his early involvement with the New Left, to his critique of Thatcherism, to his later focus on neoliberalism. The essays come from three broad periods: the 1950s and 1960s, when Hall was involved in the New Left; the 1970s and 1980s, when he evolved his critique of Thatcherism; and from the 1990s until the end of his life, when he focused on the emergence of neoliberalism.

This launch brings together a group of politically engaged academics/ intellectuals to discuss and explore the ongoing relevance of these essays in the current political conjuncture. These are:

-Michael Rustin, founding editor of Soundings and co-editor of Stuart Hall’s Selected Political Writings.
-Neil Davidson, Lecturer in Sociology, University of Glasgow and author of How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions? and Nation-States: Consciousness and Competition.
-Catherine Eschle, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of Strathclyde, author of Global Democracy, Social Movements and Feminism and (with Bice Maiguashca) Making Feminist Sense of the Global Justice Movement.
-Shirin Hirsch, Post-doctoral Fellow in History, University of Wolverhampton who has published on the experiences of Chilean exiles in Britain and on class and multi-culturalism.

The discussion will be chaired by David Featherstone, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Glasgow and author of Solidarity: Hidden Histories and Geographies of Internationalism. A wine reception will follow the discussion.