This Conjuncture: For Stuart Hall

Abstract

When Stuart Hall died in 2014, many tributes and memorial activities were planned by organisations, institutions and publications that felt they owed him a debt. New Formations was no exception, and the editorial board spent some time reflecting on an appropriate tribute. Stuart himself, as many of us knew, had little interest in seeing his work codified or memorialised for its own sake. But there was one injunction that many of us were familiar with from that work, his example, and from frequent personal and political conversations with him. The importance of thinking about 'the conjuncture', of 'getting the analysis right', was one that Stuart frequently emphasised to his students and interlocutors. The importance of mapping the specificity of the present, of situating current developments historically, of looking out for political threats and opportunities, was always at the heart of Stuart's conception both of 'cultural studies' as a specific intellectual practice, and of the general vocation of critical and engaged scholarship in the contemporary world. This is double-issue is the first of two volumes of New Formations to be dedicated, in Stuart's honour, to the understanding of this conjuncture. This introductory essay/editorial considers the relationship between 'cultural studies' and 'conjunctural analysis' as specific types of intellectual practice, before proposing a specific analysis of our present 'conjuncture', in dialogue with the other contributors to this volume.