Reflections on Leaving Salaried Academia

My tenure as full-time Professor of English at the University of Greenwich ends today (31 August 2025). Inevitably, I find myself reflecting on what the institution and I have given each other. What follows is a development of a LinkedIn post in July, on the day I handed in the keys to my office. The…More

Crossing Cultures: Transforming Romanian Education. Part 1

What follows is the Introduction to the Teachers’ Book of a British Cultural Studies textbook for 12th grade Romanian students in bilingual schools whose first edition came out in 1998: Crossing Cultures: British Cultural Studies for Romanian Students (Cavallioti Publishing & The British Council, Bucharest, Romania). ISBN 9739840094. The Teachers Book as well as the…More

Crossing Cultures Introduction Part 2

2. Capacitaţi intelectuale and British Cultural Studies The categorisation of the cognitive skills or capacitati intelectuale is variable. The Plan cadrul lists capacitatea de analiză, sinteză, comparaţie, resolvare de probleme – aplicare a cunoştinţelor şi a competeţelor dobândite în situaţii noi, etc. The categorisation we are familiar with derives from the work of the psychologist…More

Crossing Cultures Part 3

Introduction Part 2:Miscellaneous Hints on how to get the best out of Crossing Cultures  We want to stress that each class – except where otherwise stated – should last no more than 50 minutes. If you allow discussion to get out of hand too often or consistently try to translate every word, you will…More

Exploring the Archive with The Wicked Boy

The moment (this is October 2024) when the “Queen of True Crime” , Kate Summerscale, has just published her 7th book, Peepshow, seems an appropriate one to revisit an earlier book of hers, The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer (2016). The Wicked Boy was very successful, garnering great reviews (here’s the…More

Angels and Demons: Lulu and the Copula Act 3

The previous post closed with a perhaps outrageous claim to have noticed something that specialised music critics have not. But the point is not difficult to argue. Let’s look again at the extract from the score I printed in the previous post. Notice the directions nehmen Dpf in the middle of the page – put…More

Angels and Demons: Lulu and the Copula Act 2

I ended the previous post with a reference to Adorno’s appreciation of Lulu. I’ll return to Adorno later. Before I do, I want to remark on a particular structural element the critics find more fascinating than any other:  Berg’s obsession with palindromes in Lulu – music that runs forwards and then backwards. Perhaps the example…More

The Book in the Twentieth Century Part 4: war and competing media

This historical definition of the twentieth century as related to book publishing over the last two posts have covered 6 elements: technology, ownership, regulation and distribution and conglomeration and the paperback format (the first post was an introduction). Before ending this consideration of the book in the twentieth century, I want to cover two more areas: first,…More