Stuart Hall Reading Group

Our readings of Stuart Hall (1932-2014) situate this thinker as one of the twentieth century’s foremost public theorists of culture, identity, history, and capitalism. This group convenes interdisciplinary perspectives to examine how Hall brought historiography to bear upon broader debates in Marxism, postcolonial studies, critical theory, and media studies. We draw upon ancillary works by scholars such as Antonio Gramsci to better contextualize Hall’s impact on the history of capitalism. We also engage with Hall’s commentary on such authors, and especially those on Gramsci and Louis Althusser. We ultimately reflect on Hall’s work as a public intellectual who advocated for the relevance and transmission of history beyond the private academy.

2025-2026 Faculty Organizer:
Partha Shil | pshil [at] stanford.edu (pshil[at]stanford[dot]edu) 

2025-2026 Graduate Student Organizer:
Mahishan Gnanaseharan | mahishan [at] stanford.edu (mahishan[at]stanford[dot]edu)