Stuart Hall - Race, the Floating Signifier

Race: The Floating Signifier

Duration: 62 min ISBN: 1-893521-62-1 Date Produced: 1997 Filmmaker Info Transcript Praise for the Film

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Stuart Hall - Race, the Floating Signifier
Race: The Floating Signifier

Arguing against the biological interpretation of racial difference, Hall asks us to pay close attention to the cultural processes by which the visible differences of appearance come to stand for natural or biological properties of human beings. Drawing upon the work of writers such as Frantz Fanon, he shows how race is a "discursive construct" and, because its meaning is never fixed, can be described as a "floating signifier."

DVD extra: The Reference Edition features, unedited, the full lecture that Hall delivered at Goldsmith's College in London (65 min), as well as the 20-min question-and-answer session that followed.

Sections: Intro | What More Is There To Say About Race? | The Formal Rejection of Biological Racism | The Survival of Biological Thinking | The Badge of Race | Race as a Language, a Floating Signifier | But What About the Reality of Racial Discrimination & Violence? | Two Positions: The Realist and the Textual | A Third Position | The Discursive | Religion | Sleeping Easier | Fixing Difference | Nature = Culture | Seeing Is Believing | Genetics | Reading the Body | Why We Have To Move Beyond Reality | Analyzing the Stories of the Body | Why Does it Matter?

Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall, a leading figure of the British left over the past thirty years and a visionary race theorist, had made profound contributions to the field of cultural studies at the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University. His work has made possible multiple conversations taking place around questions of culture, race and ethnicity.

Filmmaker Info

Producer, Director, Editor: Sut Jhally
Associate Producer: Joanna Hughes
Line Producer: Make Spencer, Cactus Films
Cameras: Dan Blanchard, Steve Blanchard, Aubrey Fagon, Rob Hardy, Tommy Martin
Production Assistants: Allessio Quarzo-Cerina, Renee Haine
On-Line Editors: Bruno Mansi, Graham Taylor
Assistant On-Line: James Carter
Post Production: Hillside Studios

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Praise for the Film

"Stuart Hall is our most acute student of race and communication (and many other matters as well), and a passionate and engaging lecturer."
- James W. Carney