27

OXFORD Institute of Education, I5 Norham Gardens, Oxford.

Area served Oxford, half Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire.
READING Institute of Education, The University, London Road, Reading,
Berks.
Area served Reading and parts of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire
and Hampshire.
SHEFFIELD Institute of Education, The University, Sheffield, 10. (At 387
Glossop Road.)
Area served Barnsley, Chesterfield, Doncaster, Penistone, Rotherham,
Sheffield.
SOUTHAMPTON Institute of Education, The University, Southampton, Hants.
Area served Dorset, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, W. Sussex. Bournemouth,
Portsmouth, Southampton, Channel Islands.
WALES
ABERYSTWYTH Faculty of Education, University College of Wales, Cambrian
Street, Abcrystwyth.
Area served Carmarthenshire. Cardiganshire, Breconshire, Pembrokeshire,
Radnorshire, Montgomeryshire, Merionethshire.
BANGOR Collegiate Faculty of Education, University College of North
Wales, Bangor.
Area served Anglesey, Caernarvon, Denbigh, Flint, Merioneth, Montgomery.
CARDIFP Faculty of Education, University College of South Wales and
Monmouthshire, 34 Cathedral Road, Cardiff.
Area sewed CardS, Newport, Monmouthshire, East Glamorgan (including
Rhondda), Merthyr Tydfil.
SWANSEA Faculty of Education Centre, University College of Swansea,
Maes-yr-Haf, 50 Sketty Road, Swansea.
Area served Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Breconshire, West Glamorgan,
Mid-Glamorgan and Radnorshire.

CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY

CULTURAL STUDIES
By STUART HALL
Research Fellow in Contemporary Studies

A new Centre for the study of contemporary cultural problems has been established
within the English School at Birmingham University. This will be the first centre of
its kind in an English university. The director is Professor Richard Hoggart, and the
scope of the Centre’s work has been most fully defined in his inaugural lecture, Schools
of English and Contemporary Society (recently republished in two issues of Use of
English, Winter, ‘63, Spring, ‘64).
Prof. Hoggart proposes three main areas of interest for the new Centre. The first-
“historical and philosophical”-will be concerned with the terms in which the debate
about contemporary culture and cultural change is carried on. It will try to tram out
climates of opinion, main movements of ideas, their sources and interactions, and their
influence upon social change, in the last fifty or sixty years. For example, one of the
first projects in October will bc a study in depth of the period of the ‘Thirties, using
Orwell’s work as a ‘ key.’ The second area-the “sociology of literature and the arts”-
will scek to develop a critical language for dealing with phenomena which have both
artistic and social significance. Here the Centre will try to bring to bear the disciplines
of literary criticism, sociology and social psychology. It will also be concerned with
 28

POETS O F O U R T I M E
Edited by F. E. S. Finn, B.A.

Mr Finn's two-volume anthology The Albemmle Book of Modern Verse

has established itself, in the two-and-a-half years since publication, as one
of the foremost school anthologies of contemporary poetry.
This new anthology follows quite a different plan. It confines itself
to ten poets, each of whom is represented by an average of fifteen poems:
John Betjeman James Kirkup
Charles Causley Laurie Lee
Patric Dickinson Norman Nicholson
Clifford Dyment Man Ross
Ted Hughes R. S. Thomas
Each poet's work is prefaced by an introduction (which in many cases
is wiitten by the poet himself). These introductions show how the poet
views his work in relation to his life, and in some cases they include detailed
references to the poems in this collection.
Publication April 1965 7s 6d

CAEDMON RECORDS
of the Spoken Word
With the increasing emphasis on spoken English, teachers are finding the
Caedmon recordings an invaluable aid. The Shakespeare series, now con-
sisting of 16 plays to which additions are regularly made, has received
extremely high praise from the critics; and in addition there are recordings
of T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, John Masefield and many other modem
poets reading their own works, together with recordings of the classics by
Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Dame Sybil Thomdike, Lewis Cassons, Sir Ralph
Richardson and many others.
Caedmon records are available direct from John Murray: please write
for a list and order form.

JOHN MURRAY
50 Albemarle Street London W1
 29

the nature of different audiences for different kinds of art and literature, with the
formation of opinion and attitudes, with the influences of communication upon audiences,
and with relationships between different ‘kinds’ of art.
In the third area-the “critical-evaluative”-a great deal of attention will be given
to the critical examination of mass art, popular art and the mass media. ‘‘Essentially,
we will be trying to understand how the mass arts or the popular arts achieve their
effects.” This field includes popular fiction, the press, films and television, popular
music and advertising. Projects in these fields will, of course, draw on the evidence
and methods of sociology and social psychology, but the main approach throughout
will be a critical-evaluative one.
The Centre will be primarily a research centre, and those engaged in the work
will be either post-graduate students working for a higher degree or research fellows
sponsored to undertake a particular study jointly between the Centre and interested
outside bodies. At present, the main source of funds is from research foundations and
similar organisations. The first research fellow was appointed in April under a generous
grant offered by Penguin Books. It is expected that about ten full-time research students,
and several closely-associated part-time workers, will begin their work in October, 1965.
There will be a Centre “workroom” in the Department, with available library facilities
and a collection of materials; and a critical bibliography of the field is to be prepared.
In addition, the Centre will, from time to time, publish pamphlets and “occasional
papers” as contributions to the general debate, and sponsor a selective number of
conferences.
There is already a close association growing between the Centre and its research
projects, and people more actively engaged in the field of education and teaching. It is
likely that, out of this contact, will grow a number of services available to teachers
and lecturers, including, perhaps, materials for class discussion, a news bulletin on
“ work-in-progress,” access to the workroom collection, and a regular journal. Such
a service would be available to teachers and lecturers in schools and colleges for a
small “ association fee.” We should be pleased to hear from anyone who would support
such a service. It is also possible that one of the main projects will be directly con-
cerned with the impact of modern forms of communication upon children, especially
in the context of the teaching of English.

CORRESPONDENCE
Dear Sir,
In the Spring, 1964, edition of the NATE Bulletin Professor Randolph Quirk dis-
cussed the virtual non-existence of English language, as opposed to literature, education
beyond the G.C.E. ‘0’ Level examination. He pointed out that it was virtually non-
existent because of the lack of staff trained to teach language at a higher level, and
that this lack of staff was likely to continue as long as there were so few universities
running courses with a large language component. He further pointed out that ‘‘Univer-
sity English Departments in turn complain that freshmen come up not merely unpre-
pared for a linguistic discipline, but after two or three years in a literary orientated
sixth-form rather thoroughly predisposed to disfavour language study of any kind.”
And so the vicious circle continues.
Why are so many of our school pupils so “thoroughly predisposed to disfavour
language study of any kind ”? Why is there such a lack of interest in language, other
than language used in literature, which is being catered for in higher education in
the form of literature degrees? It might be worth examining one aspect of language
teaching as it exists in secondary pre-‘0’ Level English education: the relationship of
English language and English literature.
Many revolutionary ideas have been suggested for the teaching of English in
schools, and some of them have been and are being practised, but few of the revolu-
tionaries have ever questioned the place of English literature in the English syllabus.
Professor Quirk, in an essay on ‘‘ English Language and the Structural Approach in
The Teaching of EngJish ( O W 1964. London), says, “ N o w traditionally English