PhD student research interests
David Wilkinson
PhD Research Profile
Research Interests
My research is concerned with the interrelationship of gay and lesbian subculture, political activism, intellectual currents and academic institutions in the UK over the past forty years. I am aiming to re-evaluate this history from Marxist and cultural materialist perspectives with a view to building on early materialist theories of sexuality developed within groups such as the Gay Liberation Front and Gay Left. I also aim to trace the subsequent institutionalisation of politics and theories of sexuality within professional organisations and universities respectively. This will be tied to an account of the growing global dominance of neoliberalism and the ebbing influence of the Left since the 1970s. This task is further aimed at questioning hegemonic theories of sexuality, histories of sexual subcultures and approaches to politics within the academy, specifically the US dominated field of queer theory.
At the moment I am concentrating on defining phrases such as 'sexual subculture', 'sexual politics', 'queer intellectual' and 'sexual radicalism', both to clarify my own understanding of these terms and to unravel their ideological co-ordinates in queer and poststructuralist intellectual production. This will be the topic of my first research panel.
I have a particular fascination with the explosively radical climate of the late 1960s; though it is considered by many to have waned by the early 1970s, it may be argued that various Gay Liberation groups and the continuing momentum of the women's movement prolonged this moment in some quarters. I am specifically interested in exploring possible links between the ideas, politics and organisation of the Situationist International and the UK Gay Liberation Front. This may form part of the thesis and will more than likely be the topic for a paper or article.
Other Interests
These include a more general interest in the Situationist International and its avant-garde lineage, urban space, popular culture and music, modernism, cultural theory and Marxism. I am currently a member of a reading group on Marx's Capital Volume I guided by David Harvey's online lectures and attended by a mixture of artists, students and academics. I also intend to set up a postgraduate reading group on Marxism. For more information on either group or if you have shared interests, you can e-mail me at silly_pseudonym@hotmail.com