Hegemony
and politics of the cultural: potentials of a critical re-reading of the Gramsci reception in the work of Stuart Hall
With the disclosure of the work of the Italian philosopher, Stuart Hall provided an essential contribution to Gramscis continuous impact on the 20th century. Central concepts such as the hegemony, the interdependency of culture and power and the evidently political properties of the cultural, the civil society as site of negotiation of this very politics and, last but not least, the role of the popular culture all these concepts could not have been developed in this particular form without Gramscis theoretic contribution, even though this has time and again been suppressed in the German-speaking area. In Gramscis work Hall has rediscovered the interdependency, resulting from a political claim, between theory and politics and in Gramsci he found an unorthodox author standing for a open Marxism that has proven so useful for the reorientation of the left in the middle of the century. By way of this, Hall established a tradition of working and dealing with Gramsci, especially in the Anglo-Saxon area, that exists now side by side with the older, philologically highly specialized and more traditional-Marxist oriented school. These two strands do not communicate with each other in a very remarkable manner. As a scientist of Romance literature and culture I see myself
apt to enforce this communication. Since, in my dissertation, I investigate
into the feasibility of deriving an aesthetic theory from
Gramsci and since I would definitely like to disclose them for the cultural
studies, I will subject Stuart Halls Gramsci reception to a critical
revision in terms of perceptions and misconceptions. The theses obtained
by this critical review shall be put up for discussion. |