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<p><i>Defund Culture</i> is now out, published
by mediastudies.press:</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.mediastudies.press/defund-culture-a-radical-proposal">https://www.mediastudies.press/defund-culture-a-radical-proposal</a></p>
<p>It's available open access, under the CC4r: Collective Conditions
for Re-Use commitment, so please feel free to share widely. </p>
<p>The abstract and contents are provided below. </p>
<p>Best wishes as always, Gary</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Gary Hall,<em> <a
href="https://www.mediastudies.press/defund-culture-a-radical-proposal">Defund
Culture: A Radical Proposal</a> - Why the Arts Are So White,
Male and Middle-Class and What We Can Do About It</em></p>
<p id="n2ruvs7h9gl"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.mediastudies.press/defund-culture-a-radical-proposal">https://www.mediastudies.press/defund-culture-a-radical-proposal</a></p>
<p id="ns3doupj3bg" data-pm-slice="1 1 []">Calls to expand public
investment in the arts often treat the existing cultural and
institutional landscape as a given. <em>Defund Culture</em>
challenges this assumption, asking instead what kinds of culture
are being supported, through which institutions, and to whose
benefit.</p>
<p id="ngjel1gxa80">In pursuing these questions, the book turns
attention to the structural inequalities that shape Britain’s
creative and intellectual life. Drawing on critical theory,
political philosophy, and cultural policy, Hall shows how the
dominance of white, male, middle- and upper-class voices in the
arts, media, and academy is sustained through longstanding funding
arrangements and institutional hierarchies. Expanding access
within this system (e.g. through social mobility
initiatives)—however well intentioned—will not, on its own,
produce structural change.</p>
<p id="n2lwgjlb6qn">Rather than offering a programme of reform, <em>Defund
Culture</em> explores what it might mean to disinvest from
cultural institutions as they currently operate. Taking cues from
abolitionist calls to defund the police, Hall proposes
redistributing resources away from elite institutions and toward
more collective, commons-oriented, and radically relational
alternatives grounded in redistribution, institutional
transformation, and epistemic pluriversality.</p>
<p id="nn0iwsqjgdy">The book is published by mediastudies.press, and
is available online and as a free download in PDF and ePub, on a <a>CC4r:
Collective Conditions for Re-Use basis</a>. A paperback version
is also available.</p>
<p id="n2ruvs7h9gl"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.mediastudies.press/defund-culture-a-radical-proposal">https://www.mediastudies.press/defund-culture-a-radical-proposal</a></p>
<p>A response to <i>Defund Culture</i> by Roger Malina is also
available as: </p>
<p>Roger Malina, 'Defunding, Activating, and the Afterlives of
Culture: On Gary Hall’s <i>Defund Culture</i> and <i>Activating
Fluxus, Expanding Conservation</i>, eds Hanna Hölling, Aga
Wielocha, and Josephine Ellis':
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://garyhall.squarespace.com/journal/2026/1/22/defunding-activating-and-the-afterlives-of-culture-roger-mal.html">http://garyhall.squarespace.com/journal/2026/1/22/defunding-activating-and-the-afterlives-of-culture-roger-mal.html</a></p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Contents</p>
<p>Preamble </p>
<p>PART 1: WHY THE ARTS ARE SO WHITE, MALE, AND MIDDLE-CLASS</p>
<p>Chapter One: The Culture Wars and Attack on the Arts <br>
Chapter Two: Culture Must Be Defunded <br>
Chapter Three: Culture in Ruins: "Are We the Bad Guys?" </p>
<p>PART 2: AND HERE’S SOME OF THE THINGS WE CAN DO ABOUT IT</p>
<p>Chapter Four: Culture and the University as White, Male, Public
Space <br>
Chapter Five: De-Liberalizing Culture and Theory <br>
Chapter Six: Coda </p>
<div
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id="x_nnch4fnplwb" class="x_elementToProof">--</div>
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<p><br>
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<p><br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Gary Hall
Professor of Media
Coventry University
Director of Open Humanities Press: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.openhumanitiespress.org">http://www.openhumanitiespress.org</a>
Blog: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://garyhall.squarespace.com/journal/">http://garyhall.squarespace.com/journal/</a>
Latest:
Book: Defund Culture: A Radical Proposal: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.mediastudies.press/defund-culture-a-radical-proposal">https://www.mediastudies.press/defund-culture-a-radical-proposal</a>
Recommended: Robot Review of Books #17 I’m Like a PDF But a Girl: Girlblogging as a Nomadic Pedagogy by Ester Freider; #18 & #19 On Giving Up by Adam Phillips: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.robotreviewofbooks.org/">https://www.robotreviewofbooks.org/</a>
</pre>
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