The gift of the mediator: Stuart Hall's Selected Writings on Marxism

The three latest entries to the Duke University Press series Stuart Hall: Selected Writings highlight three core concerns of Stuart Hall's wide-ranging intellectual work. Their titles - Selected Writings on Race and Difference (edited by Paul Gilroy and Ruth Wilson Gilmore), Selected Writings on Media (edited by Charlotte Brunsdon) and Selected Writings on Marxism (edited by Gregor McLennan) - may seem to suggest that it is easy to neatly separate these three aspects, when in fact, as readers will be aware, these aspects constantly intersect and inform each other in Hall's work. This is not to say, however, that it doesn't make sense to attempt a thematic separation of the kind that these recent volumes undertake. Doing so offers the opportunity for new readers to be introduced to Hall's work in a systematic way, while those already familiar with it are invited to think more deeply about the individual trajectories of his writings. The editors of each volume have found individual ways to engage with their respective selection of texts.