Stuart Hall: Race, The Floating Signifier

Stuart Hall: Race, The Floating Signifier (1997) is a feature film. Top cast includes Stuart Hall. The plot follows a central conflict that grows in scope as the film progresses.

Actor: Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall offers an accessible and clarifying analysis of the social construction of race and racial difference. He explores how variations in people's appearances come to be mistaken for essential differences. He traces how these misinterpretations function both to express and to reproduce dominant power relations. And he argues for more rigorous engagements with identity, representation, and contingency capable of acknowledging and respecting difference without essentializing it. An ideal introduction to how cultural studies intervenes in debates about race, representation, identity, and power.