For this week’s discussion questions, we were instructed to write a single question related in some way to the Stuart Hall Symposium. While reading through Hall’s essay titled, “Who Needs Identity?,” I kept thinking about Derrais Carter’s presentation at the symposium and their statement that what matters in cultural studies is not simply identity but also practice. They stated, “Your method will always reveal your ethic.” In “Who Needs Identity?” Hall states, “because identities are constructed within, not outside, discourse, we need to understand them as produced in specific historical and institutional sites within specific discursive formations and practices, by specific enunciative strategies” (4). These two statements are connected for me in this way: identities are constructed and then we reveal them to others. Simply put, we tell people who we are by what we do and how we do it. So, here’s my question:
How do we come to grips with the heritages/lineages of our disciplinary canons and scholarly traditions when we the scholars who laid those foundations may have shown themselves to be unethical or dishonorable? How can we learn from their work without condoning their bad behavior?
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