Owain Burrell
@oburrell.bsky.social
Early Career Teaching Fellow at the University of Warwick. Writing on grammar schools and British literature
Pinned
Owain Burrell
@oburrell.bsky.social
· Nov 12
Finally submitted my PhD yesterday - feels very odd to have let it go but pleased to have it in!
I passed my viva today with no corrections - couldn't and still can't quite believe it! Very grateful to my examiners, Mike Niblett and Nick Bentley, and as always a constant debt of gratitude to my supervisor Michael Gardiner
Reposted by Owain Burrell
Attention @bacls.bsky.social members. We recently launched the BACLS 'Work in Progress' Group, where members can get collegiate and supportive feedback on academic work. If you have work to submit or want to act as a reader do get in touch! Not yet a member? Visit our website to register bacls.org
British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies
The association’s mission statement is as follows:
bacls.org
January 28, 2026 at 2:41 PM
Attention @bacls.bsky.social members. We recently launched the BACLS 'Work in Progress' Group, where members can get collegiate and supportive feedback on academic work. If you have work to submit or want to act as a reader do get in touch! Not yet a member? Visit our website to register bacls.org
Reposted by Owain Burrell
🚨🚨CALL FOR PAPERS🚨🚨Fancy contributing to a special issue on Cultural Materialism, Fascism and the Far Right, edited by @elinormtaylor.bsky.social? Look no further... Details, including the deadline, at the link: raymondwilliams.co.uk/2026/01/28/c...
Call for Papers: Cultural Materialism, Fascism and the Far Right, A Special Issue of Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism
Speaking in 1980 amid the New Right upsurge, Raymond Williams noted that ‘cultural struggle is absolutely crucial, because this is the terrain on which the interpretation of the crisis had to be es…
raymondwilliams.co.uk
January 28, 2026 at 5:53 PM
🚨🚨CALL FOR PAPERS🚨🚨Fancy contributing to a special issue on Cultural Materialism, Fascism and the Far Right, edited by @elinormtaylor.bsky.social? Look no further... Details, including the deadline, at the link: raymondwilliams.co.uk/2026/01/28/c...
The most recent episode of Fallout (S2EP6) really hammers home the perpetual '50s ideology of the nuclear technocracy by using a Time and Motion-style production line as the ideal form of management
January 25, 2026 at 12:14 PM
The most recent episode of Fallout (S2EP6) really hammers home the perpetual '50s ideology of the nuclear technocracy by using a Time and Motion-style production line as the ideal form of management
Reposted by Owain Burrell
For the New Statesman I tracked the career of the corporate raiding Thatcherite turned populist tribune, James Goldsmith
www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2026/0...
www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2026/0...
James Goldsmith, godfather of British populism
Unlike Nigel Farage or Rupert Lowe, Goldsmith told the truth
www.newstatesman.com
January 24, 2026 at 1:37 PM
For the New Statesman I tracked the career of the corporate raiding Thatcherite turned populist tribune, James Goldsmith
www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2026/0...
www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2026/0...
I've just finished Stuart Hall's 'Familiar Stranger' and it's an absolutely fantastic (auto)biographical text with a richness of thought that rivals any work or theory - the way he thinks Jamaica and Britain together is masterful
January 8, 2026 at 7:04 PM
I've just finished Stuart Hall's 'Familiar Stranger' and it's an absolutely fantastic (auto)biographical text with a richness of thought that rivals any work or theory - the way he thinks Jamaica and Britain together is masterful
Reposted by Owain Burrell
Interested in guest editing a special issue of Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism? We've made it easier than ever to pitch us. Download our special issue proposal form here: raymondwilliams.co.uk/submission-g...
December 12, 2025 at 8:51 AM
Interested in guest editing a special issue of Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism? We've made it easier than ever to pitch us. Download our special issue proposal form here: raymondwilliams.co.uk/submission-g...
I passed my viva today with no corrections - couldn't and still can't quite believe it! Very grateful to my examiners, Mike Niblett and Nick Bentley, and as always a constant debt of gratitude to my supervisor Michael Gardiner
Finally submitted my PhD yesterday - feels very odd to have let it go but pleased to have it in!
November 12, 2025 at 9:07 PM
I passed my viva today with no corrections - couldn't and still can't quite believe it! Very grateful to my examiners, Mike Niblett and Nick Bentley, and as always a constant debt of gratitude to my supervisor Michael Gardiner
Reposted by Owain Burrell
Definitely contemplating this. Anyone interested in doing a panel on Scottish SFF. I'm thinking modern modern or contemporary but always open to ideas. #fantasy #sciencefiction #ScottishSFF
If you’re working on any area of fantasy and the fantastic, come and join us at Glasgow in June 2026 and do consider presenting or running a workshop! All the info you need and the full CFP is here:
fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/20...
@uofgfantasy.bsky.social @uofgartshums.bsky.social
fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/20...
@uofgfantasy.bsky.social @uofgartshums.bsky.social
November 9, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Definitely contemplating this. Anyone interested in doing a panel on Scottish SFF. I'm thinking modern modern or contemporary but always open to ideas. #fantasy #sciencefiction #ScottishSFF
Reposted by Owain Burrell
👻 Preparing for my book launch on Friday (Hallowe'en!) 1pm UK - if you'd like to join online drop me an email!
You can read and access LIVING WITH GHOSTS here link.springer.com/book/10.1007... with institutional access 👻
You can read and access LIVING WITH GHOSTS here link.springer.com/book/10.1007... with institutional access 👻
October 28, 2025 at 10:56 AM
👻 Preparing for my book launch on Friday (Hallowe'en!) 1pm UK - if you'd like to join online drop me an email!
You can read and access LIVING WITH GHOSTS here link.springer.com/book/10.1007... with institutional access 👻
You can read and access LIVING WITH GHOSTS here link.springer.com/book/10.1007... with institutional access 👻
Finally submitted my PhD yesterday - feels very odd to have let it go but pleased to have it in!
September 7, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Finally submitted my PhD yesterday - feels very odd to have let it go but pleased to have it in!
Reposted by Owain Burrell
Thrilled that Fionnula and myself have been granted generous funding by @ucdhumanities.bsky.social to run this conference. Anyone interested in women's lit/mental health/disability studies keep your eyes peeled for CfP!
'Bad Feelings: Sadness and Gender in Contemporary Culture' - @darlingorlaith.bsky.social and Fionnula Simpson
'Craft: Activism, Literature, Labour' - Katherine Fama and Benjamin Anderson
'Energy, Creativity, Sustainability' - Derval Conroy, Jane Grogan, and Jeanne Riou
'Craft: Activism, Literature, Labour' - Katherine Fama and Benjamin Anderson
'Energy, Creativity, Sustainability' - Derval Conroy, Jane Grogan, and Jeanne Riou
August 11, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Thrilled that Fionnula and myself have been granted generous funding by @ucdhumanities.bsky.social to run this conference. Anyone interested in women's lit/mental health/disability studies keep your eyes peeled for CfP!
Just under two weeks to send in abstracts for this special issue!
🚨🚨Call for contributors to next year's issue of Key Words, a special issue on 'Foreclosure,' guest edited by Chloe Ashbridge and Owain Burrell🚨🚨 Deadline for abstracts is July 18th, 2025. Read more here: raymondwilliams.co.uk/2025/06/09/c... Please share widely.
Call for Contributors: Foreclosure, a Special Issue of Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism
British cultural production has a long history of foreclosure. Understood as a premature abandonment, or an abortive failure, of radical political projects, foreclosure has an imaginative and mater…
raymondwilliams.co.uk
July 5, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Just under two weeks to send in abstracts for this special issue!
Had a great time at the Dis/Trusting the Institutions of Literature conference at UCD - a brilliant series of panels and papers across themes of sociology and literature.
Here I am chatting away about the grammar school, disciplinary English Literature, and the British constitution.
Here I am chatting away about the grammar school, disciplinary English Literature, and the British constitution.
June 20, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Had a great time at the Dis/Trusting the Institutions of Literature conference at UCD - a brilliant series of panels and papers across themes of sociology and literature.
Here I am chatting away about the grammar school, disciplinary English Literature, and the British constitution.
Here I am chatting away about the grammar school, disciplinary English Literature, and the British constitution.
Reposted by Owain Burrell
🚨🚨Call for contributors to next year's issue of Key Words, a special issue on 'Foreclosure,' guest edited by Chloe Ashbridge and Owain Burrell🚨🚨 Deadline for abstracts is July 18th, 2025. Read more here: raymondwilliams.co.uk/2025/06/09/c... Please share widely.
Call for Contributors: Foreclosure, a Special Issue of Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism
British cultural production has a long history of foreclosure. Understood as a premature abandonment, or an abortive failure, of radical political projects, foreclosure has an imaginative and mater…
raymondwilliams.co.uk
June 9, 2025 at 2:03 PM
🚨🚨Call for contributors to next year's issue of Key Words, a special issue on 'Foreclosure,' guest edited by Chloe Ashbridge and Owain Burrell🚨🚨 Deadline for abstracts is July 18th, 2025. Read more here: raymondwilliams.co.uk/2025/06/09/c... Please share widely.
Pleased to say that mine and Michael Gardiner's paper on meritocracy and its discontents in Textual Practice is now open access
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
The satire of the meritocracy: foreclosed futures in Michael Young, Raymond Williams, and Muriel Spark
The high summer of the post-war British consensus is often seen as a period of social promise, in which the opportunity for social mobility was made available to all through the technocratic basis ...
www.tandfonline.com
May 25, 2025 at 7:11 AM
Pleased to say that mine and Michael Gardiner's paper on meritocracy and its discontents in Textual Practice is now open access
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
I've been learning Welsh for two years now with mixed success - very grateful to my Welsh colleague who will talk to me about books in Welsh! I think I'll have to start trying to slowly read something on my own, but that's probably a post-PhD project
December 30, 2024 at 10:46 PM
I've been learning Welsh for two years now with mixed success - very grateful to my Welsh colleague who will talk to me about books in Welsh! I think I'll have to start trying to slowly read something on my own, but that's probably a post-PhD project