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'Only in the common people': the Aesthetics of Class in Post-War Britain

"‘Only in the common people’: The Aesthetics of Class in Post-War Britain’ is an extension of PhD work completed in the Centre for Social History, University of Warwick. It was developed after an approach from the publishers as I began to use the research to inform public conferences, publications and projects. This work has its gestation in the experience of completing MA work on everyday cultural production in the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies and in response to cultural studies theory and agendas encountered there in which the practices and impulses of creative work were largely overlooked. The aim was to seek out evidence of historical practice and theories of cultural production beyond the familiar founding tales of the field and narratives of the post war period associated with the New Left, Angry Young Men and at the Kitchen Sink, considering the manner in which such work evinced contemporary discourses of class, culture and creativity. The intention was to make available my historicisation of cultural debate and the neglected and untold histories that added texture to our understanding of the ‘welfare culture’. Thus, beyond the remit of PhD, the book was aimed at an audience of public historians and scholars of media and cultural studies, emphasizing the interdisciplinarity of the approaches and conceptual framework of the research.

The book established many of the themes that I have pursued in subsequent work as Reader in Media and Cultural History and lead in research for archives and heritage for BCMCR. In addition, the process of unearthing new archives, and innovating in exploring the range of sources available for retrieving practice and thought is an approach that informs explorations of contemporary cultural work in my role on the AHRC-funded ‘Cultural Intermediation: Connecting Communities in the Creative Urban Economy’.