Clark Art Lecture on Stuart Hall

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — On Tuesday, Feb.25, the Clark Art Institute's Research and Academic Program presents a talk by David Scott (Columbia University / Clark Fellow) examining the career of Stuart Hall and the publication of Hall's landmark book, "The Popular Arts."

This free event takes place at 5:30 pm in the Manton Research Center auditorium.

According to a press release:

Influenced by Hoggart's The Uses of Literacy (1957) and Raymond Williams's Culture and Society (1958), this much-neglected book helped to inaugurate the study of contemporary popular culture as well as contemporary media studies. Engaging television and cinema, audience and institutions, critics and young people, the book was wide-ranging in its attempt to offer an analytical frame for rethinking the old distinction between "high" and "low" culture. The talk contextualizes The Popular Arts and discusses its importance both in the evolution of Stuart Hall's thinking in the 1960s, and in the making of Cultural Studies.

David Scott is the Ruth and William Lubic Professor in the department of Anthropology at Columbia University in New York. He is the author of a number of books, including "Stuart Hall's Voice: Intimations of an Ethics of Receptive Generosity" (2017) and "Irreparable Evil: An Essay in Moral and Reparatory History" (2024). The founding editor of Small Axe, Scott is director of the Small Axe Project. Currently at work on a biography of Stuart Hall, Scott will devote his time at the Clark to examining Hall's work in the 1970s. 

Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524. A 5 pm reception in the Manton Research Center reading room precedes the event. For more information, visit clarkart.edu/eventsAdmission to the Clark is free January through March 2025.

 


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Mount Greylock School Committee Hears Budget Requests, Pressures

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee Thursday heard the final rounds of fiscal year 2027 budget requests and heard why those — or any — discretionary increases in spending will be difficult in the year that begins July 1.
 
Williamstown Elementary Principal Benjamin Torres and middle-high school Principal Jake Schutz each presented the spending priorities formulated by their respective school councils. The requests followed a presentation by Lanesborough Elementary Principal Nolan Pratt at the January meeting.
 
Superintendent Joseph Bergeron then told the School Committee that state and federal aid to the district is going to be slightly lower than FY26 and reminded the panel that the district spent the last two years spending down its reserve accounts, as requested by the member towns, to the point where those reserves — School Choice, tuition and excess and deficiency — cannot be applied to the operating budget.
 
"Spending the exact same amount of money from this year to next year — that alone will mean a 4 percent increase [in appropriations] to each of our towns," Bergeron said. "That's the baseline on top of which everything else will happen.
 
"We know we're seeing an 8.75 percent increase in health insurance, but we also have an increasing number of employees who are taking our health insurance, so that health insurance line is increasing substantially. When it comes to out-of-district tuition as well as transportation, both of those are seeing marked increases as well."
 
District staff and the School Committee will further refine its FY27 budget over the next five weeks, with a budget workshop scheduled for Tuesday, March 3, and a public hearing and final budget vote on March 19.
 
The district's appropriations to Williamstown and Lanesborough, which each pay a proportional share of the prekindergarten-Grade 12 district's operating expenses, will face an up-or-down vote at each town's annual meeting, in May and June, respectively.
 
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