CaféTheoria is an interactive, hybrid workshop series where renowned experts discuss core social science theories, where you have the opportunity to engage your peers & colleagues in lively discussion & debate. The sixth workshop of CaféTheoria will discuss influential scholar Stuart Hall with Dr Yasmin Gunaratnam. 

Who can attend?

The workshop series is aimed at postgraduate students (PGT) and doctoral scholars (PGR) in the faculty of Social Science and Public Policy.

The workshops are intended to introduce students to key thinkers' works, so you are not expected to be familiar with the text or to read in advance!

When/Where?

The two-hour event will be held on 07.05.2024, in-person in Room 1.3 Macadam Building, Strand Campus, King's College London and online via Zoom (further details forthcoming- stay tuned!). Refreshments (food, light beverages) will be provided.

The Zoom link to the event will be shared with all registered virtual attendees one day prior to the event.

Ticketing

This event is free! Tickets are available for in-person and online attendance. However, in-person attendance is limited so please cancel if you are unable to attend.

About Professor Yasmin Gunaratnam

Yasmin is a sociologist interested in how different types of inequality and injustice are produced, lived with and remade and how these processes create new forms of local and global inclusion and dispossession.

Before she came to King's in September 2021, Yasmin taught in the Sociology department at Goldsmiths and was co-director of the Centre for Feminist Research. Yasmin is also a yoga teacher, exploring contemplative social justice and embodied pedagogies.

Yasmin will be discussing the influential scholarship of Prof Stuart Hall. Professor Stuart Hall was a Jamaican-British academic, writer and cultural studies pioneer, who was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1932. He came to the UK in 1951 as a Rhodes Scholar, to study English at Merton College, Oxford University. After his BA, he started a DPhil, but the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary and the Suez Crisis prompted him to leave the world of Henry James and focus instead on his political work.

Hall became a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, was the founding editor of the New Left Review and the journal Soundings, and author of many articles and books on politics and culture including Policing the Crisis and ‘The Great Moving Right Show’ (for Marxism Today), in which he famously coined the term ‘Thatcherism’. In addition to his writings on politics and culture, he is best known for his wide-ranging contribution to the then-emerging field of cultural studies, covering elements such as identity, race and ethnicity.

He was Director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, as well as Professor of Sociology at the Open University. He was the President of the British Sociological Association and a member of the Runnymede Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain. He also chaired the arts organisations Iniva and Autograph ABP.

Hall died in February 2014; shortly afterwards, the Stuart Hall Foundation was launched, specifically to provide opportunities for students and academics pursuing themes in line with his work. Memorials/tributes to his life, activism, and scholarship capture some of his incredible and indelible impact.

About CaféTheoria

CaféTheoria is funded by KCL's SSPP Faculty Education Fund. It is an interactive and innovative hybrid workshop series organised which will run in the 2023-2024 academic year. The project is led by Dr Shagufta Bhangu and Dr Rishita Nandagiri. For further information about the event, please contact: shagufta.bhangu@kcl.ac.uk