New name for one of Goldsmiths' biggest departments

From 1 September, one of Goldsmiths’ biggest academic departments will have a new name – with the Department of Media and Communications becoming the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies.

Here, departmental co-heads Professors Lisa Blackman and Joanna Zylinska explain how the new name reflects the importance of the past, present and future of cultural studies at Goldsmiths.

The connection between the development of cultural studies in Britain and at Goldsmiths as an institution is inscribed in its very architecture – with the Richard Hoggart and Professor Stuart Hall buildings, named after two of cultural studies' founding figures, facing each other across the green.

The long history of cultural studies at Goldsmiths includes the research, practice and teaching associated with the members of the former Centre for Cultural Studies and the work of key scholars from the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies, including Professors David Morley and Angela McRobbie, as well as past members of the Department who left their mark on the field. It also encompasses the work of those who have developed existing traditions of “doing cultural studies” in new ways, via both theory and practice.

The Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies will play a lead role in helping consolidate, reconfigure and expand the interdisciplinary field of cultural studies, allowing us to draw on the histories of cultural studies at the institution as well as on the new research trajectories which have recently emerged under this banner.

We aim to position the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies as one of the most unique, creative and radical places to study and practise media, communications and cultural studies in the world.

In 2018-19 we will re-launch the Department as part of our 40th anniversary celebrations, with a series of events. We hope you will join us.