Biographies June 12

of 10
Cultural
Theorists
2019
Owais Ayoub
There is the detailed biographies of the dignitaries who have contributed their bit in
the field of the Cultural studies and in other domains as well. 1804CUKmr21
Semester: 2nd
 Biographies of 10 Cultural Theorists
1. Herbert Richard Hoggart (24 September 1918 – 10 April 2014) was a British
academic whose career covered the fields of sociology, ​English literature​ and ​cultural
studies​, with emphasis on British popular culture. Hoggart was born in
the ​Potternewton​ area of ​Leeds​, one of three children in an impoverished family. His
father, a soldier, died when Hoggart was a year old, and his mother died when he was
eight. He grew up with his grandmother in ​Hunslet​, and was encouraged in his
education by an aunt. He gained a place at ​Cockburn High School​ which was
a ​grammar 12/6/2019school​, after his headmaster requested that the education
authority reread his scholarship examination essay. He then won a scholarship to study
English at the ​University of Leeds​, where he graduated with a First Class Degree.​[1]​ He
served with the ​Royal Artillery​ during ​World War II​ and was demobilised as a Staff
Captain. He became Senior Lecturer in English at the ​University of Leicester​ from 1959
to 1962.

While Professor of English at ​Birmingham University​ between 1962 and 1973, he founded the institution's ​Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies​ in 1964 and was its director until 1969. Hoggart was Assistant Director-General
of ​UNESCO​ (1971–1975) and finally Warden of ​Goldsmiths, University of London​ (1976–1984), after which he
retired from formal academic life. The 'Main Building' at Goldsmiths has now been renamed the 'Richard Hoggart
Building' in tribute to his contributions to the college.

In later life he suffered from dementia. He died on 10 April 2014 at the age of 95.

2. Antonio Francesco Gramsci​ (22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an

Italian Marxist philosopher and communist politician. He wrote on political
theory, sociology and linguistics. He attempted to break from the economic determinism
of traditional Marxist thought and so is considered a key neo-Marxist. He was a founding
member and one-time leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned
by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime.
He wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3,000 pages of history and analysis during his
imprisonment. His ​Prison Notebooks​ are considered a highly original contribution to 20th
century political theory. Gramsci is best known for his theory of ​cultural hegemony​, which
describes how the state and ruling capitalist class – the ​bourgeoisie ​– use cultural
institutions to maintain power in capitalist societies.
On 9 November 1926, the Fascist government enacted a new wave of emergency laws, taking as a pretext an
alleged attempt on Mussolini's life several days earlier. The fascist police arrested Gramsci, despite
his ​parliamentary immunity​, and brought him to the Roman prison ​Regina Coeli​. Gramsci died on 27 April 1937, at
the age of 46. His ashes are buried in the ​Cimitero Acattolico​(Non-Catholic Cemetery) in Rome.

3. Arjun Appadurai​ (born 1949) is an Indian-American anthropologist recognized as a

major theorist in globalization studies. In his anthropological work, he discusses the
importance of the modernity of nation states and ​globalization. He was formerly a
professor at the ​University of Chicago​ where he received his M.A. (1973) and Ph.D (1976).
After working there, he spent a brief time at ​Yale​. Appadurai taught for many years at the
University of Pennsylvania, in the departments of Anthropology and South Asia Studies.
During his years at Penn, in 1984, he hosted a conference through the Penn Ethnohistory
program; this conference led to the publication of the volume called ​The Social Life of
Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective​ (1986). Later he joined the faculty at the ​New
School University​. He currently is a faculty member of New York University's Media Culture
and Communication department in the Steinhardt School.
Appadurai is a co-founder of the academic journal ​Public Culture​; founder of the non-profit ​Partners for Urban
Knowledge, Action and Research​ (PUKAR) in Mumbai; co-founder and co-director of Interdisciplinary Network
on ​Globalization​ (ING); and a fellow of the ​American Academy of Arts and Sciences​. He has served as a consultant
or advisor to a wide range of public and private organizations, including
the ​Ford​, ​Rockefeller​ and ​MacArthur​ foundations; ​UNESCO​; the ​World Bank​; and the ​National Science Foundation​.

4. Raymond Henry William (31 August 1921 – 26 January 1988) was born
in Llanfihangel Crucorney, near Abergavenny, Wales, he was the son of a railway
worker in a village where all of the railwaymen voted Labour, while the local small
farmers mostly voted Liberal. It was not a Welsh-speaking area: he described it as
"Anglicised in the 1840s".​[3]​ There was, nevertheless, a strong Welsh identity.
Williams attended King Henry VIII Grammar School in Abergavenny. His teenage years
were overshadowed by the rise of Nazism and the threat of war. He was 14 when
the Spanish Civil War broke out, and was conscious of what was happening through his
membership of the local Left Book Club. He was a supporter of the League of Nations,
attending a League-organised youth conference in Geneva in 1937. On the way back,
his group visited Paris and he went to the Soviet pavilion at the International Exhibition.
There he bought a copy of ​The Communist Manifesto​ and read Karl Marx for the first time. Williams attended ​Trinity
College, Cambridge​, where he joined the ​Communist Party of Great Britain​. He was a ​Welsh​ ​Marxist theorist​,
academic, novelist and critic. He was an influential figure within the ​New Left​ and in wider culture. His writings on
politics, culture, the mass media and literature made a significant contribution to the ​Marxist​ critique of culture and
the arts. Some 750,000 copies of his books have sold in UK editions alone and there are many translations
available. His work laid the foundations for the field of ​cultural studies​ and the ​cultural materialist​ approach.
5. Jürgen Habermas​ (born 18 June 1929) is a German ​philosopher
and ​sociologist​ in the tradition of ​critical theory​ and ​pragmatism​. He was born
in ​Düsseldorf​, ​Rhine Province​, in 1929. He was born with a ​cleft palate​ and had
corrective surgery twice during childhood. Habermas argues that his speech disability
made him think differently about the importance of deep dependence and of
communication. He studied at the universities
of ​Göttingen​ (1949/50), ​Zurich​ (1950/51), and ​Bonn​ (1951–54) and earned a doctorate
in philosophy from Bonn in 1954.
He is perhaps best known for his theories on ​communicative rationality ​and the ​public
sphere​. In 2014, ​Prospect​ readers chose Habermas as one of their favourites among
the "world's leading thinkers". Habermas was awarded The ​Prince of Asturias Award​ in
Social Sciences of 2003. Habermas was also the 2004 Kyoto Laureate in the ​Arts and Philosophy​ section. He
received the 2005 ​Holberg International Memorial Prize​ (about €520,000).
6. Erving Goffman​ (11 June 1922 – 19 November 1982) was a
Canadian-American ​sociologist​, ​social psychologist​, and writer. He was from a family
of ​Ukrainian Jews​ who had emigrated to Canada at the turn of the century.​[3]​ He had an
older sibling, ​Frances Bay​, who became an actress.The family moved to ​Dauphin,
Manitoba​, where his father operated a successful tailoring business.
He graduated in 1945 with a BA in sociology and ​anthropology​. Later he moved to
the ​University of Chicago​, where he received an MA (1949) and PhD (1953) in
sociology. For his doctoral dissertation, from December 1949 to May 1951 he lived and
collected ​ethnographic​ data on the island of ​Unst​ in the ​Shetland Islands. ​Goffman was
the 73rd president of the ​American Sociological Association​. His best-known
contribution to ​social theory​ is his study of ​symbolic interaction​.
In 1952 Goffman married Angelica Choate; in 1953, their son Thomas was born.
Angelica suffered from mental illness and died by suicide in 1964. Outside his
academic career, Goffman was known for his interest, and relative success, in
the stock market and in gambling. At one point, in pursuit of his hobbies and
ethnographic studies, he became a pit boss at a Las Vegas casino.
In 1981 Goffman married sociolinguist Gillian Sankoff. The following year, their daughter Alice was born. In 1982
Goffman died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 19 November, of stomach cancer. His daughter, Alice Goffman, is
also a sociologist.
7. Herbert Marcuse was born July 19, 1898, in ​Berlin​, to Carl Marcuse and Gertrud Kreslawsky. His family
was ​Jewish​. In 1916 he was drafted into the ​German Army​, but only worked in horse stables in Berlin
during ​World War I​. He then became a member of a Soldiers' Council that participated in the
aborted ​socialist​ ​Spartacist uprising​. He completed his PhD thesis at the ​University of Freiburg​ in 1922 on
the German ​Künstlerroman​ after which he moved back to Berlin, where he worked in publishing. In 1924 he
married Sophie Wertheim, a mathematician. In 1933 Marcuse joined the ​Institute for Social Research​,
popularly known as the ​Frankfurt School​. In 1933, Marcuse published his first major review, of ​Karl
Marx’s​ ​Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.​ In this review, Marcuse revised the interpretation
of ​Marxism​, from the standpoint of the works of the early Marx.
On July 29, 1979, ten days after his eighty-first birthday, Marcuse died after suffering a ​stroke​ during a visit to
Germany.
8. Friedrich Pollock​ (22 May 1894 – 16 December 1970) was a ​German ​social
scientist​ and ​philosopher​. He was one of the founders of the ​Institute for Social Research
in ​Frankfurt am Main​, and a member of the ​Frankfurt School​ of neo-Marxist theory. He
was born to a leather factory owner in ​Freiburg im Breisgau​. Pollock's Jewish-born father
turned away from ​Judaism​, and raised his son accordingly.​[1]​ Pollock was educated in
finance 1911 to 1915. During this time he met ​Max Horkheimer​, with whom he became a
lifelong friend. He then studied ​economy​, ​sociology​ and philosophy in ​Frankfurt am Main​,
where he wrote his thesis on ​Marx's ​labor theory of value​ and received his doctorate in
1923.
Prior to the Nazi seizure of power, Pollock had used his contacts in the International
Labour Organization to establish a Geneva branch of the Institute. In 1933, Pollock and
Horkheimer moved into exile, first in Geneva, then to London, Paris, and finally New York
City.
In 1950, he was finally able to return to Frankfurt, taking part in the reestablishment of the Institute, again taking the
role of director. From 1951 to 1958 he was professor of national economy and sociology at the University of
Frankfurt.
In 1959, Pollock and Horkheimer moved to Montagnola, Ticino, Switzerland, although Pollock held a position as
professor Emeritus at the University of Frankfurt until 1963. He died in Montagnola in 1970.
9. Paul Willis​ (born 1945) is a British ​social scientist ​known for his work in sociology and
cultural studies. Paul Willis' work is widely read in the fields of ​sociology​, ​anthropology​,
and ​education​, his work emphasizing ​consumer culture​, ​socialization​, music, and ​popular
culture​. He was born in ​Wolverhampton​ and received his education at the ​University of
Cambridge​ and at the ​University of Birmingham​. He worked at ​Centre for Contemporary
Cultural Studies​ and subsequently at the ​University of Wolverhampton​. He was a
Professor of Social/Cultural ​Ethnography​ at ​Keele University​. In the autumn of 2010, he
left ​Keele University​ and is now a professor at ​Princeton University​.
Paul Willis is best known for his rich ethnographic studies of working-class youth culture.
Willis states that the motive for his ethnographic recording of life was to show forms of
humanistic creativity, and this is still the case today. "As a humanist, I'm attempting to make a theorized humanism
which still preserves some element of creativity.”
10. Edward Palmer Thompson​ (3 February 1924 – 28 August 1993) was a British
historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. Thompson was born
in ​Oxford​ to ​Methodist ​missionary parents: His father, ​Edward John
Thompson​ (1886–1946) was a poet and admirer of the Nobel Prize–winning poet ​Tagore​.
His older brother was ​William Frank Thompson​ (1919–1944), a British officer in ​World
War II​, who was captured and shot aiding the Bulgarian anti-fascist partisans.
Thompson was one of the principal intellectuals of the ​Communist Party​ in Great Britain. Although he left the party in
1956 over the ​Soviet invasion​ of Hungary, he nevertheless remained a "historian in the ​Marxist​ tradition", calling for
a rebellion against ​Stalinism​ as a prerequisite for the restoration of communists' "confidence in our own
revolutionary perspectives".