Education
2011-2021: PhD in English and Humanities (Critical Theory), Birkbeck College, University of London.
Passed with no corrections
‘A History of Dreams: Reading Benjamin and Adorno through Memory and Forgetting’
My doctoral thesis addressed the thought of the philosophers Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin, addressing their writing on literary, metaphysical, psychoanalytic, and historiographic themes. It offers novel interpretations of their work, contributing to discourses on the role of dreams in 20th century philosophy; Marxist accounts of experience and the body; theories of literary form and reading; responses to German classical philosophy; critical musicology; and metaphysics in the wake of the Holocaust. The thesis also included substantial new translations of hitherto unstudied textual sources.
2010-2011: MA in Cultural and Critical Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London
Passed with Distinction and the highest grade in the year
An arts degree with an emphasis on 20th century critical theory. Modules taken: culture and criticism; culture, technology and the senses; from fetishism through reification to the spectacle; globalization and contemporaneity; memory, trauma and cultural identity; and aesthetics and cultural theory; as well as a dissertation on Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno.
2004-2007 BA (Hons.) in Music, Robinson College, University of Cambridge
Passed with First Class Honours
An arts degree with an emphasis on 19th and 20th century music. Modules taken in historical musicology, aesthetics, musical analysis, ethnomusicology, and compositional technique. Included a dissertation on feminism and queer theory in 1990s musicology
Employment
2024- Research Associate, ‘A New Democratic (Dis-)Order: Race, Identity, and Political Mobilisation in the UK and France, 1970-Present’, University of Edinburgh
Generating a repository of primary source documents on black third-worldist radicalism in Britain in the 1970s for a complex multi-institutional research project.
2023- Associate Lecturer, MRes Art: Philosophy and Theory, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
Teaching on the MRes Art: Philosophy and Theory. Convening seminars for second-year MRes on advanced concepts in aesthetics, as well as writing and research skills.
2022- Independent researcher, writer and editor
Undertaking commissioned writing on historical, philosophical, and artistic topics. Frequent copy-editing academic manuscripts for publication. Research assistant on a project examining conceptions of the state among British Marxist feminists in the 1970s and 1980s. Occasional archival consultancy on projects based in both community arts and radical history.
2021-2022 Oral History Processing Assistant at the NHS at 70 Project, University of Manchester
Processing oral history interviews undertaken as part of the ‘NHS at 70’ and ‘Voices of COVID-19’ projects, in order for them to be catalogued at the British Library.
2016-2021 The Archivist at MayDay Rooms
Running an independent archive comprising approximately 50,000 objects, with a focus on social movements, radical arts, and the cultures and resistance of marginalized groups from the 1960s to the present. Developing cutting-edge approaches to archiving historic political ephemera and art. Establishing inclusive methods to the conserve histories of struggle. Collaborating to design modes and platforms for the cataloguing, display, and dissemination of anomalous archival materials. Working in a small team to deliver a popular programme of cultural and educational events. Maintaining and managing a busy building used by a diverse range of activist and cultural groups.
2014-2016 Associate Tutor, Department of English and Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London
Teaching seminars to first- and second-year undergraduate students on modules introducing methods in the humanities, and an intellectual history survey course addressing changing political, scientific, literary, psychoanalytic, and philosophical approaches to the human in modernity.
2009-2010 Partnership Officer and Course Administrator at the Institute of Education, University of London
Working 0.8 FTE as a Partnership Officer on the Secondary PGCE programme, organising school placements for 760 students in over 300 schools around London. Acting as a first point of contact for partnered schools, arranging training sessions, administering payments, maintaining databases, and developing institutional best practices. Working 0.2 FTE as a course administrator for the Secondary PGCE in Social Sciences, providing comprehensive administration for a course with 25 students.
2007-2009 Temporary Administrative and Secretarial Worker
Positions undertaken included: working as a Membership Officer at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, maintaining a database of doctors working in women’s health around the world; working as an Enrolment Administrator at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London; designing a database of prison ministers and compiling a 160 page report on their work for Quaker Peace and Social Witness; working as a Receptionist for the Rail Safety and Standards Board; and undertaking market research for Card Group.
2007-2008 Peripatetic Music Teacher
Privately tutoring students in piano and music theory, in preparation for grade exams, GCSEs, and A-Levels.
2007 Intern working on membership, marketing, and administration at The Fawcett Society
Funding Received
Academic
AHRC Doctoral Award (Covering fees, stipend, and research expenses, worth £50,000)
DAAD Grant (Stipend and travel grant for research abroad worth £3,000)
Birkbeck Arts Research Studentship Award (Covering fees worth £3,500)
AHRC Masters Award (Covering fees and stipend, worth £15,000)
As Part of the MayDay Rooms Collective
Annual grant from the Glasshouse Trust 2016-2021: total £285,000 covering core operational expenses
Arts Council UK: £12,000 to offer placements for artists and researchers
Heritage Lottery Fund: £9,000 to develop an archive of recent campaigns around housing within London
Joseph Rowntree Foundation: £27,000 towards staff costs for a multimedia archive project
Lush Charity Pot: £7,000 covering core costs
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung: £10,000 towards the production of two publications
Academic Publications
‘Spells’ and ‘Monsters’, forthcoming in Utopian Play: A Handbook, University of Sussex Humanities Lab, Ping Press, 2024.
‘The Sun in Fate and Character’ forthcoming in Diacritics, special issue on Walter Benjamin’s ‘Fate and Character’, 2024
‘Adorno’s Essay on Ideology: A Commentary in Three Parts’, in Selva: A Journal of the History of Art, Issue 4, Special Issue on Ideology, Strategy, and Aesthetics, 2022, pp. 19-33 (peer reviewed).
‘Translation of Adorno’s ‘Contribution to the Theory of Ideology (1953)’, in Selva: A Journal of the History of Art, Issue 4, Special Issue on Ideology, Strategy, and Aesthetics, 2022, pp. 19-33 (peer reviewed translation).
‘Crumbs from the Scene: Notes to Sean Bonney (1969-2019)’, in Maska, Vol. 36, Nos 205-206, December 2021, pp. 23-33.
Camera Forward!: MayDay Rooms Pamphlet 1, eds. Jacob Bard-Rosenberg, Rosemary Grennan, Fani Arampatzidou, and Anthony Iles, (MayDay Rooms: London, 2021).
‘Thinking Need in California: The 1942 Seminars of the Frankfurt School and the Brecht Circle’ in Um Abschied geht es ja nun. Exil und Kein Ende, eds. Bormuth and Haarmann, (Marburg: Tectum, 2015), pp. 115-128.
‘Catastrophe’ in Bad Feelings, ed. Arts Against Cuts, (London: Bookworks, 2016), pp. 89-93.
‘History in Darkness: Seven Fragments on Siegfried Kracauer’s The Salaried Masses’ in Anguish Language, eds. Cunningham, Iles, Mattar, and Vishmidt, (Berlin: Archive Kabinett, 2015), pp. 173-202.
‘Memories of Origination’, MetaMute, April 2013.
Additional Teaching and Lecturing Experience
2023- MRes Art: Philosophy and Theory, convening second year seminar on advanced texts in aesthetics and research skills for philosophy and theory, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.
2016-2021 Frequent workshops, talks, roundtables, and archival presentations given to students. Workshops on archives and archiving delivered to student groups from the Royal College of Art, Central St Martins School of Art, Goldsmiths College, Birkbeck College, Greenwich University, London South Bank University, Queen Mary University, London Metropolitan University, King’s College London, City University of New York, Sandberg Institute, The American University in London, and others.
May 2019 MA Critical Studies, Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam. Seminar on reading Adorno’s Minima Moralia
2014-2016 BA English/BA Arts and Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London. Modules on Methods in the Humanities and a survey course: Producing the Human
Spring 2012 MA Cultural and Critical Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London. A special set of seminars on Kant, Hegel, and the uses of German classical philosophy by Lukács and Adorno.
Conference Presentations and Lectures
‘Live Rats or The Art of Poverty’, invited guest lecture, Edinburgh College of Art, March 2024
‘Adorno and The Good Evil Comrade’, at Association of Adorno Studies, May 2023, University of Sussex, Brighton.
‘Remarks Concerning Walter Benjamin’s Stockings’, talk at seminar on Materie in Walter Benjamin’s Philosophy, April 2023, at the Institute for Advanced Studies, University of London.
‘The Writing on the Wall Destroyed’, invited lecture, February 2022, at Institut für Zeitgenossische Kunst, Technische Universität, Graz, Austria.
‘Walter Benjamin with Crosses and Without: Marginalia on the Symbol’, talk at seminar on Intensität in Walter Benjamin’s Philosophy, April 2018, at Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie, Hannover, Germany.
‘Collaborative Projects: Pleasures and Pains’, roundtable on Jo Spence’s photography and collective work, March 2018, Birkbeck College, London.
‘Colour and Fantasy’ talk with Chris Law, seminar on Wahrnehmung in Walter Benjamin’s Philosophy, March 2017, Sandberg Institut, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
‘Experience as Intoxication’, talk at seminar on Erfahrung in Walter Benjamin’s Philosophy, April 2016, University of Art and Design, Offenbach, Germany.
‘Six Notes on Reading ‘The Destructive Character’ in Palestine’ conference paper at Walter Benjamin in Palestine: On the Place and Non-Place of Radical Thought, December 2015, International Art Academy of Palestine and Birzeit University.
‘Adorno’s Dream: Interpretation After Auschwitz’ invited lecture at Marxism in Culture Seminar, November 2015, University of London,
‘Angelic Satire: Benjamin on Standstill and Marx on Movement’ at Historical Materialism Conference, November 2014, University of London.
‘Thinking Need in California: The 1942 Seminars of the Frankfurt School and the Brecht Circle’ at ‘Um Abschied geht es ja nun… Exil und Kein Ende’ July 2014, at Department of Communication and Cultural Studies, Freie Universität, Berlin.
‘The Interior without Children: Adorno and the Kindertotenlieder’ at Historical Materialism Conference, November 2013, University of London.
‘On the Physiognomy of Judges and Militant Poetics’, at Militant Poetics and Poetry Conference, May 2013, Birkbeck College, University of London.
Memories of Origination: Survival, Prison, and the Kant-Freud Complex in Adorno’s Aesthetic of Natural Beauty’ at Historical Materialism Conference, November 2012, University of London.
‘Alarm Clocks, Awakening, and Capitalist Time’, at London Conference of Critical Thought, June 2011, Birkbeck College, University of London.
Journalistic Writing and Art Criticism
‘A History of Stolen Nights’, Spike Art Magazine, January 2024
‘Towards Pure Machines’ in Refuse to Collaborate, February 2022, Stadtgalerie Bern.
‘Images after the Spectacle’, in Camera Forward: Mayday Rooms Pamphlet 1, July 2021, MayDay Rooms, London, pp. 7-11
‘On Terry Dennett’, exhibition text for Scenes of the Crime, September 2019, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna.
Demands Against the Long Crisis of the University, February 2018, Critical Legal Thinking.
‘A Broken Type of Grace’, exhibition text for Time Crystals by David Panos, May 2017, Pump House Gallery, London.
On Brexit, SSPT website, June 2016.
‘All The World’s A Platform’, MetaMute, December 2014.
‘Wanna Play? Game Over’, MetaMute, October 2014.