Final Question

While reading this week, the quote from Dipesh Chakrabarty in “On the Impossibility of a Global Cultural Studies: British Cultural Studies in an International Frame “ really struck me as the conversation about the Centre of cultural studies has been framed in. It read, “the real problem may be that the genre in which “histories” are being invented for cultural studies often leads people into positing a single origin for their practice—something which those same people would never do in any other context.” I would offer up the contradictory nature of cultural studies, providing a hegemonic and dominant reading. The reading continues by positioning Stuart Hall as the founder and potential spokesperson for this dominant but diasporic lens of cultural studies. Hall later recalls these myths about the origin of Cultural Studies and his positionality as a cultural studies subject. I find it quite complicated to situate cultural studies in its international context without fully acknowledging its roots and interrogating the complications of its origins. How do we hold space for recognizing both the impact of cultural studies and its counter international roots based on hegemonic stature while also developing the acknowledgments of an international cultural studies route outside of and in conversation with the dominant structure?