Stuart HallFour intellectuals founded cultural studies, namely Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, EP Thompson and Stuart Hall. Hall (born 1932) received the lion's share of the publicity. Scholars working in this tradition often draw inspiration from his articles. Hall tells us about growing up in Jamaica, the “blackest son” (in his words) of a conservative, middle-class family; From a young age, Hall says, he rejected his father's attempt to assimilate into white, English-speaking society (his father rose through the ranks at the United Fruit Company). In 1951 he won a scholarship to Oxford (he was a Rhodes Scholar) and (as they say) the rest is history. As a student at Oxford, he felt that his color as well as his economic status affected the way people related to him. At that time, his social life was centered around a circle of West Indian students. He subsequently (in 1954) obtained a scholarship to pursue higher studies. At this time, he aligned himself with the emerging New Left (a group opposed to Stalinism and British imperialism). During the period 1957-61 he taught at a secondary school in Brixton, London, and edited the Universities and Left Review, and during the period 1961-64 he taught film and media at Chelsea College, London. During the period 1964-79 he taught at the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) in Birmingham. Over the years, Paul Corrigan, John Fiske, Dick Hebdige, Angela McRobbie, David Morley and Paul Willis have worked at the Centre. Hall has always combined activism and theory. He says he was always “within earshot of Marx.” For example, in the 1950s, he was – with Raymond Williams – one of the leaders of the New Left. For a decade he rejected M...... middle of paper...... latent motives that could not be expressed otherwise, particularly incitements to aggression and violence . Furthermore, the western serves to articulate and reaffirm primary cultural values, that is, progress and individualism, by reenacting the triumph of civilized order over wilderness. Works Cited Barthes, Roland. 1977. “Rhetoric of the Image” (1964). In Image/Music/Text, trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Hilland Wang. (A summary of this important article is provided on the COMS 441 website.) Hall, Stuart. 1974. “Televised Speech – Encoding and Decoding.” In Studies in Culture: An Introductory Reader, ed. Ann Gray and Jim McGuigan. London: Arnold, 1997, pp. 28-34.---. 1980. “Encoding/decoding.” In Paul Morris and Sue Thornton (eds.), Media Studies: A Reader. 2nd ed. Washington Square, NK: University Press, 2000, pp... 51-61.