Special Issue Co-Editors: Peter Decherney and Katherine Sender

Stuart Hall may be one of our most foundational scholars in critical and cultural approaches to communication, media, identity, diaspora, and the politics of popular culture. Critical Studies in Media Communication is planning a special issue on Hall to pay tribute to this legacy and to take stock of his contribution to our field, to be published in late 2016. Fronted by Hall’s article “Signification, representation, ideology” that originally appeared in CSMC in 1985, the special issue will explore his ongoing relevance in our rapidly transforming media landscape.

How do we continue to draw on his insights even as technologies and practices change? To what extent does his work still offer a rubric for understanding media production and consumption processes, and where does it need to expand to include new practices? How might concepts such as articulation and play still help us make sense of audience engagements in our increasingly interactive media environments? The issue will appear as an edited book anthology soon after publication in the journal.

They welcome contributions across a range of engagements with Stuart Hall’s work. These may include (but are not limited to):
Revisiting Hall’s classic models or articles in the light of contemporary media practices;
A close reading of a canonical text by Hall that deserves review;
An area of Hall’s research in historical context;
Hall’s contribution to representations of race and class;
What Hall’s work contributes to contemporary gender and sexuality studies;
Audiences, interactivity, and play;
Postcolonialism, diaspora, and globalizing media;
Hall and communication technologies;
Reading against the grain: why Stuart Hall was wrong

Contributions may be a full paper (7,000 words or fewer) or an extended abstract (1,000 words or so) for consideration for the special issue.

Deadlines:
Abstract/paper deadline: 15 July 2015
Decisions on abstracts/papers: 1 August 2015
First drafts/revisions due: 28 February 2016
Second drafts due: 30 June 2016
Final drafts due: 15 August 2016
Publication: October 2016 (Volume 33, issue 5)

To Apply:
Please send full papers or abstracts by July 15 to the co-editors:
Peter Decherney: decherney@sas.penn.edu
Katherine Sender: ksender@umich.edu