Value and the Humanities

My open access monograph, Value and the Humanities: the Neoliberal University and Our Victorian Inheritance (2020) is available to read online as part of Palgrave’s Studies in Literature, Culture, and Economics.

Value and the Humanities traces the shift from liberal to neoliberal education from the nineteenth century to the present day. The book articulates a kaleidoscopic range of humanities practices which demonstrate that although recent policy encourages higher education to be entirely motivated by outcomes, fiscal targets, and the acquisition of employability skills, the humanities continue to inspire and aspire beyond these limits.

“This powerful and thoughtful book draws out the Victorian antecedents of our current debates over universities, schools, museums, fiction and public policy, and so provides a deep and productive view of their past and current contexts. This means it is also a significant contribution to—and intervention in—these debates.”

_{Robert Eaglestone, Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK}

Cities and Civics

I am working develop the civic relationships between universities and their local regions through both education and research activities.

Currently, I convene the course ‘Public English’ at the University of Birmingham. This allows students to understand the value of their degrees and interests in the world, with a specific interest paid to schools education, community engagement, and creative industries / cultural policy.

This teaching is closely connected to my research on the future of the public humanities. Last year, I joined the team of interdisciplinary researchers involved in the Academic College, and co-founded UniTopia (2020 -).  Both of these projects are committed to understanding new ‘civic ecologies’ between universities and cities.