Beyond Britain

Reviews / Votes

This is an incisive study of the relationship between two of paradigm-shifting fields of enquiry to emerge from the second-half of the 20th century: Cultural Studies and Postcolonial Studies. Lars Jensen presents a compelling analysis of the disciplining of the fields of scholarship, locating each in its specific history of institutionalisation and political and ideological orientation, while demonstrating the ways in which the fields developed a parallel focus around the place of the individual in terms of race, ethnicity, class and gender. The figure of Stuart Hall looms large, providing the intellectual structure for a comparative study as well as acting as a political barometer for the struggle by a Black British intellectual moving between Britain and the Caribbean. An original and provocative book that explains the continuing value of critiquing power and disciplinary practices. -- Jacqueline Lo, Professor and Director of the ANU Centre for European Studies, The Australian National University This book is both timely and untimely. It positions Stuart Hall--one of the major public intellectuals of his age, and already sorely missed--at the cusp of British Cultural Studies and Postcolonial Studies. The first is a field with which Hall came, perhaps too narrowly, to be identified; the second is a field with which he probably deserves to be identified more. Lars Jensen does a fine job in showing how these two fields have operated in dialogue with one another, even if that dialogue has not always been registered or recognized. In placing Hall at the centre of the conversation, Jensen does honour to him while reflecting closely, as he did, on the fundamental but potentially productive instability of our times. -- Graham Huggan, Chair of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Literatures, School of English, University of Leeds Jensen serves up a smart, provocative examination of the reasons why cultural studies and postcolonial studies should have joined forces -- intellectually and politically -- long ago, but never did. This is an important book for anyone interested in the history and politics of either of these vital projects. -- Gilbert B. Rodman, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, University of Minnesota