Educational Qualifications
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PhD in Sociology (London School of Economics and Political Science, 2005)
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MA in Sociology (George Mason University, US, 1998)
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BSc in Education (University of Delaware, US, 1994)
Teaching Responsibilities
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Year 1: Popular Culture (LY1019)
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Year 2: Contemporary Social Theory (LY2018
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Year 3: Culture, Power and Communication (LY3011)
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Year 3: Sociology and Politics of Education (LY3009)
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MA: Social Theory and Social Change (LYM005)
Research Interests
My research focuses on the politics of culture, particularly the role of knowledge and cultural practices in what Pierre Bourdieu has called the ‘social conditions of possibility’ in everyday life. My work explores two broad questions. First, how does the political and economic organisation of cultural work (particularly in education and the arts) impact upon the nature and possibility of transformative social action? Second, what sort of languages and cultural practices have the effect of opening up political processes and possibilities, and which work to close them down? I have studied these questions in different forms and contexts, including the role of public history and museums in the United States, the politics of social science in post-socialist Central Asia, and more recently problems of critical pedagogy in the UK and globally.
Research Projects
The politics of ‘transformative’ culture in popular education and the arts, £5000, British Academy, 01/08/2010 – 01/02/2012
This research aims to clarify the 'transformative' potential of culture in late capitalist society. In response to popular discourses of despair about the inevitability of ecological catastrophe, economic crisis and the erosion of democratic participation, many cultural workers assert that the ‘world-making’ practices of art and education can create space for alternative perspectives and empower people to take action for social change. At the same time, the future of these very practices is threatened by the commodification of cultural work itself. When authenticity has market value, creativity is cultural capital and reflexive dialogue is good public relations, how does culture function as a critical force in social life? To answer these questions, this project explores the motivations, experiences and impacts of cultural workers who lead projects for social change in the arts and education, and who define their work as essential not only for creating spaces of political possibility, but also challenging the cultural logic within which such practices are themselves devalued or suppressed.
Publications
Books
The Politics of Knowledge in Central Asia: Social Science between Marx and the Market, London: Routledge (2007).
Theorizing Social Change in Post-Socialist Societies: Critical Perspectives, edited with B. Sanghera and T. Yarkova, London: Peter Lang (2007).
Articles
‘Promising futures: “education” as a resource of hope in post-socialist society’, Europe-Asia Studies, special issue on ‘Polities of the Spectacular: Symbols, Rhetoric and Power in Central Asia’, 2009, 61 (7): 1189-1206.
‘Embracing the politics of ambiguity: towards a normative theory of “sustainability”’, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 2009, 20(2): 111-25.
‘Pedagogy against dis-utopia: from conscientization to the education of desire’, Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 2008, 25: 291-325.
‘Whither critical education in the neoliberal university? Two practitioners‘ reflections on constraints and possibilities’, Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences, 2008, 1(1).
Book Chapters
‘Re-imagining critique in cultural sociology’ (co-authored with N. Hanrahan) in Hall, J., Grindstaff, L. and Lo, M. (eds) Handbook of Cultural Sociology, Routledge (2010).
‘Bringing hope “to crisis”: crisis thinking, ethical action and social change’ in Skrimshire, S. (ed.) Future Ethics: Climate Change and Political Action, Continuum (2010).
‘Education as critical practice’ in Why Critical Pedagogy and Popular Education Matter Today, Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics (2010).
‘Higher education reform in Kyrgyzstan: the politics of neoliberal agendas in theory and practice’ in Structure and Agency in the Neo-liberal University, Routledge (2008).
‘Knowledge, freedom and post-soviet imperialism: the case of social science in Kyrgyzstan’ in Theorizing Social Change in Post-Socialist Societies: Critical Perspectives, eds. S. Amsler, B. Sanghera and T. Yarkova, London: Peter Lang (2007).
‘From truth in strength to strength in truth: the reconstitution of power/knowledge in Central Asian sociology’ in Critical Sociology: Critical Perspectives on Society and Sociology, edss A. Salam, C. Harrington and T. Zurabishvili, London: Peter Lang (2004).
Reviews and Reference
Life at the Edge of the Empire: Oral Histories of Soviet Kyrgyzstan, Central Asian Survey, 2009, 28(4): 438-40.
‘Hope’ and ‘Cultural Colonialism’, entries in The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Sociology (2008).
Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism [review], The British Journal of Sociology, 2006, 57(3): 521-3.
Control and Subversion: Gender Relations in Tajikistan [review], The British Journal of Sociology, 2004, 55(4): 594.
Selected Conference Papers
‘Logics of occupation’, speaker and workshop facilitator, Nottingham University, Critical Pedagogies Seminar Series on ‘Reimagining the University’ (February 2011).
‘The crisis and future of the university’, speaker and workshop facilitator, London School of Economics (October 2010).
‘“Searching for the struggle”: the politics of articulation and the futures of the university’, Workshop, University of California at Berkeley (October 2010).
‘“Cultural transformation” as discipline and critical politics’, Culture and the Making of Worlds, European Sociological Association Culture Section, annual conference, Milan (October 2010).
‘University rankings and the consolidation of elite networked institutions in an era of global capital’ (with Dr Chris Bolsmann), British Association of International and Comparative Education, annual conference, University of East Anglia (September 2010).
‘Revalorizing critique in academic and activist education’, Critical Education for Critical Times, Centre for Social and Global Justice, University of Nottingham (May 2010).
‘Crisis thinking, ethical action and social change’, invited paper for seminar on Affirmative Critique, Institute of Advanced Studies (Durham University) and the Social/Spatial Theory Research Cluster, Department of Geography, Durham University, 24 June (2009).
‘Ethnographies of critique: critical judgment as cultural practice’, conference on ‘The Future(s) of Critical Theory’, Frankfurt Am Main, 19-21 March (2009).
‘Educating the emotions: the new biopolitics of critical pedagogy’, invited paper for ESRC Seminar Series on ‘Changing the Human Subject: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Emotional Well-Being and Social Justice in Education Policy and Practice’, 3 February (2009).
‘Bringing hope to crisis: critical thinking, ethical action and social change’, ESRC Seminar on Future Ethics, University of Manchester, January (2009).
‘Recovering the sociological imagination: critique and judgment in cultural sociology’, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Critical Theory Section, Boston, 1-4 August (2008).
'Mining the “crisis of hope” in critical theory’, Hope: Probing the Boundaries, Oxford University, 24-6 September (2008).
‘Education against dis-utopia: from “critical praxis” to the “education of desire”’, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Critical Theory Section, New York, 11-14 August (2007).
‘Needing a crisis: the paradox of “sustainability” in critical social theory’, Social Sustainability, Kingston University, 30 June (2007).
‘Towards a sociology of hope: critical research as praxis in higher education’, Discourse, Power, Resistance, University of Manchester, 20-22 April (2006).
‘Social science in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan: colonial creation or indigenous institution?’ Post-colonialism and Post-socialism: Annual Social Anthropology Workshop, Cambridge University, June (2002).
‘Where shall we begin in our society? Superiority, inferiority, and intellectual colonization in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan’, CECOB Special Convention, Nationalities, Identities and Regional Cooperation: Compatibilities and Incompatibilities, Forlì, June (2002).
Other responsibilites
Membership in Professional Organisations
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American Sociological Association
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British Sociological Association
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BSA Study Group: Sociology of Education
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Critical Pedagogy West Midlands Working Group
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Sociologists without Borders
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