Understanding Richard Hoggart: a Pedagogy of Hope, First Edition
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BAILEY, CLARKE & WALTON BAILEY, ‘This is an engaging, informative and combative work. It is exactly what it says, a “critical introduction” that moves way beyond plain description of Hoggart’s life and works, showing the relevance (but also, sometimes, the limitations) of his work and constantly contextualizing it within debates in both cultural studies and the wider political field. It is extremely well rooted in the various relevant literatures but also adds much knowledge from new sources, particularly those contained in the Hoggart Archive. In every sense, it is a good advert for, and defence of, studying the humanities.’ Dave Russell, Leeds Metropolitan University ‘A fascinating and insightful analysis of a leading public intellectual, obsessive autobiographer, founder of a new academic discipline, and original cultural critic.’ James Curran, Goldsmiths, University of London U ‘The authors of Understanding Richard Hoggart highlight, with rigour and respect, NDERSTANDING RICHARD HOGGART the continuing relevance of Hoggart’s work to anyone with an interest in how the cultural landscape at once shapes, and is shaped by, our individual habits.’ Lynsey Hanley, journalist and author of ‘Estates: an Intimate History’ Richard Hoggart is regarded as one of the ‘inventors’ of cultural studies. His work traversed academic and social boundaries. With the resurgent interest in his work today, this is a timely re-evaluation of this foundational figure in cultural studies, a critical but friendly review of both Hoggart’s work and reputation. The authors use new archival sources to re-appraise Hoggart’s intellectual and ethical influence, arguing that most attacks on his positions have been misplaced and even malevolent, and urging his importance for today’s world. Chapters address Hoggart’s contradictory and restless relationship with academic history; his uneasy but fruitful relationship with the idea of the ‘working-class intellectual’; his engagement with policy- related work inside and outside the academy; his adaptation of methods of literary analysis and the political implications of his own style; and the politics of autobiography. MICHAEL BAILEY is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Essex, UK. He is the editor of Mediating Faiths: Religion and Socio-Cultural Change in the Twenty-First Century (with Guy Redden, 2011), Richard Hoggart: Culture & Critique (with Mary Eagleton, 2011), and Narrating Media History (2009). BEN CLARKE is Assistant Professor of Twentieth-Century British Literature, University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), USA. His Orwell in Context: Communities, Myths, Values appeared in 2007. His research interests include working-class culture, the public UNDERSTANDING house, and Englishness. JOHN K. WALTON is an IKERBASQUE research professor in the Department of RICHARD HOGGART Contemporary History, University of the Basque Country, Spain. He edits the Journal of Tourism History, and his most recent book, with Keith Hanley, is Constructing Cultural Tourism: John Ruskin and the Tourist Gaze (2010). MICHAEL BAILEY, BEN CLARKE Cover image: Richard Hoggart in the Library at Goldsmith’s College, 1979. Photo © Peter Baistow, courtesy of The University of Sheffield Library. Cover design by Design Deluxe & JOHN K. WALTON Understanding Richard Hoggart For all those who still value the idea of public culture and democratic criticism and aspire to a fuller intellectual and cultural way of life Understanding Richard Hoggart A Pedagogy of Hope Michael Bailey, Ben Clarke, and John K. Walton This edition first published 2012 Ó 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. 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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title. ISBN (HB) 9781405193023 ISBN (PB) 9781405194945 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDF 9781444346541; Wiley Online Library 9781444346572; ePub 9781444346558; MobiPocket 9781444346565 Set in 10.5/13pt Minion by Thomson Digital, Noida, India 1 2012 Contents Foreword viii Acknowledgements x Introduction 1 1 Literature, Language, and Politics 16 The Uses of Literature 18 Hoggart in Context: Post-war Britain and the Leavises 21 The Language of ‘Theory’ 30 The Common Reader 34 Democratic Criticism 38 2 The Politics of Autobiography 49 Cultural Studies and Autobiography 51 Generic Conventions 54 Representing Working-Class Lives 59 Situating the Critic 66 3 Working-Class Intellectuals and Democratic Scholarship 73 Scholarship Boy 74 University Adult Education and the Varieties of Learning 76 The Grammar School and Working-Class Education 79 ‘Working-Class Intellectuals’ and the ‘Great Tradition’ 85 4 Cultural Studies and the Uses of History 94 History and Cultural Studies 94 Locating Richard Hoggart 96 Richard Hoggart and the Emergence of Social History 102 Historians and Richard Hoggart 119 ‘Nostalgia’, ‘Romanticism’, and ‘Sentimentality’: Recuperating Hoggart 122 vi Contents 5 Media, Culture, and Society 134 The BBC and Society 135 The Emergence of Commercial Broadcasting and Pilkington 138 Diversity, Authority, and Quality 145 The Limits and Possibilities of Broadcasting in the Twenty-First Century 154 6 Policy, Pedagogy, and Intellectuals 181 An International Servant 183 The Idea of University Adult Education 189 The Role of the Intellectual 194 Index 209 Come, my friends, ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses, 1833) Foreword I am glad to be able to write a foreword to this illuminating book. Its authors rightly insist on the continuing relevance of Richard’s work, which has covered aspects of life that have always interested me. He used the phrase ‘aspects of working class life’ as part of the title of The Uses of Literacy, published in 1957, and it was that book which first brought us together. It would be a cliche to say that since then our paths have often crossed. Particular aspects of our two lives have often differed, and our paths have sometimes diverged, but we have had common experiences which un- doubtedly turn us into contemporaries. The title of another book of Richard’s, a collection of essays, Speaking to Each Other, would be an appropriate title for any account of our long relationship, provided that it incorporated the notion of speaking to others too. We have both had a strong sense of the public, and we do not merely want to observe it. Three years younger than Richard, I was Professor of Modern History at Leeds, his home city and his first university, in 1956 when he was writing The Uses of Literacy while he was an extramural lecturer in Hull. We were fellow Yorkshiremen, although he had been brought up in surroundings different from mine. Keighley, a small town, contrasted with Hunslet, a distinctive part of a large city, which as Richard showed, had internal contrasts of its own. It was not propinquity that brought us together, however, but extramural education. I was then deputy president of the Workers’ Education Asso- ciation. It was because of that link that I enjoyed discussing Richard’s forthcoming book with him in detail and in depth. His first manuscript was too long, and he faced problems of copyright with many of his quotations. I was equally excited by his themes and his insights. We were on the same wavelength. That was a fitting metaphor for both of us. In the year that Richard published The Uses of Literacy I started work on my history of broadcasting.