Phil Cohen and Jim McGuigan

Members will be sad to hear of the recent deaths of two of the major figures in cultural studies in the UK, Phil Cohen and Jim McGuigan.  

Phil Cohen was an activist and theorist, who, despite never completing a first degree (he acquired a doctorate through publications) had enormous impact on our understanding of youth cultures, racism, and much else, and was a poet and youth worker as well as an influential writer and researcher. He worked at the University of East London from 1980 to 2007, where he founded and directed the Centre for New Ethnicities Research and the London East Research Institute. 

Jim McGuigan was emeritus professor at Loughborough University, and had worked previously at the Universities of Coventry, Leeds, Wolverhampton and the Open University, following periods as research officer at the Arts Council and as a script editor in BBC TV’s Drama Department.  He wrote and lectured extensively on cultural theory, on Raymond Williams, of whom he wrote an influential biography, and on ‘cool capitalism’.