Bio: (1918-2014) British sociologist. Richard Hoggart is known as one of the founders of British cultural studies. He founded the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham (where he was a professor) in 1964. In his works, he opposed mass culture, while defending the culture of the working class, which he perceived as a force that could serve to mobilize and organize the fight against inequality in capitalist societies. He saw cultural studies as a project to help educate and organize the working class so that it could make a difference. In The Uses of Literacy (1957), he studies the neighborhoods, pubs, and family relationships of the British working class to determine how the class's culture has changed under the influence of popular literature, consumerism, and Americanization (Hollywood, rock 'n' roll, etc.).

Main works

The Uses of Literacy (1957);

Higher Education and Cultural Change (1966);

Contemporary Cultural Studies (1969);

Speaking to Each Other (1970);

An English Temper (1982);

The Worst of Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression in Britain (1986);

Liberty and Legislation (1989); 

The Way We Live Now: Dilemmas in Contemporary Culture (1995);

Everyday Language and Everyday Life (2003);

Mass Media in a Mass Society: Myth and Reality (2004).