This lecture considered how the idea of Utopia helps us galvanise political literary readings within the context of an increasingly dystopian sense of global crisis. Despite the seemingly relentless, dystopian nature of these issues, I argue that contemporary writers are responding by using...

This year I've been teaching on the MA in 21st Century Literature at the University of Lincoln. One of our optional modues, "21st Century Literary Theory," has now been redesigned by Dr Lorna Burns and myself and will run in its new form in the Spring semester...

When I first joined the University of Nottingham's Department of Critical Theory and Cultural Studies to start my PhD research in 2006 I was keen to build on my reading of Frankfurt School ciritcal theory (my MA at the University of Warwick focused exclusively on critical theory). My...