John Kirk
Position (Former staff member)
Emeritus Professor
Please see News page, Professor John Kirk dies, aged 53
Qualifications
- MA: University of Sussex
- D.Phil: University of Sussex
- PGCE/FE University of Huddersfield
Background/Career
John began his working life as a textile worker before joining the British Merchant Navy as a fireman-mechanic. After taking a degree in English and History at the Polytechnic of West London, he went off to complete a D.Phil at the University of Sussex, and from there took up a number of teaching posts in English and Cultural Studies, working at Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Huddersfield and Leeds University. John is a research fellow in the Institution, working on the ESRC funded "Identities" project.
^ top
Research interests and expertise
A central focus of much of John’s writing and research centres on British working-class writing and the construction of working-class identities in popular culture. He is also interested in exploring developments in cultural and social theory, and his research is concerned to identify how the co-ordinates of class, race, gender, as well as place and space, intersect in the understanding of a personal/collective history and sense of belonging. John’s work has appeared in a number of academic journals, and he has recently published, through the University of Wales Press, a book length study on class and representation titled Twentieth Century Writing and the British Working Class. (2003)
Publications
Books
- Changing work and community identities in European regions: perspectives on past and present (edited by J.Kirk, S.Contrepois and S.Jefferys) (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012)
- Work and Identity (co-edited with Christine Wall, Palgrave, 2011).
- Class, Culture and Social Change: On the Trail of the Working Class (Palgrave MacMillan, October, 2007) ISBN 978-0-230-54920-3.
- Twentieth Century Writing and the British Working Class (University of Wales Press, November, 2003) ISBN 0-7083-1813-4 (paperback, Winter 2009).
Refereed Journal Articles
- "Resilience and loss in work identities: a narrative analysis of some retired teachers’ work-life histories," with Christine Wall, to be submitted to History of Education (forthcoming, 2009).
- "Using Oral Histories and Intersectionality to Examine the New Complexities of Work Identities and Social Class," Sociology Compass (forthcoming 2009)
- "‘I don’t think that does leave you, because it’s about where you come from’: Exploring class in the classroom," Sociological Research Online March, 2008.
- "Coming to the End of the Line? Identity, Work and Structures of Feeling," Oral History, (36/2/2008).
- "Classifying Matters," in the European Journal of Cultural Studies (10/May, 2007)
- "Marking the Moral Boundaries of Class," in SociologicalResearchOnline, Vol 11/1, March, 2006 (on-line publication, 9,744 words).
- "Figuring the Landscape: Writing the Topographies of Community and Place," in Literature and History (15/1: Spring, 2006), pp. 1-18.
- "Crossing the Border: Class and the Narrative of Transition," The Minnesota Review ns 61-62, 2004, pp. 135-147.
- "Injurious Encounters: A Reply," Space and Culture: International Journal of Social Spaces Vol 7/2, Spring 2004, pp. 343-349.
- "‘Northern Exposure:’ Mapping the Remains of the Post-Industrial Landscape," Space and Culture: International Journal of Social Spaces Vol 6/2, Spring 2003, pp. 446-452.
- "Changing the Subject: Cultural Studies and the Question of Class," Cultural Logic: Journal of Marxist Literary and Cultural Theory, Fall 2002, pp. 256-272 (on-line publication, 8,959 words)
- "Invisible Ink: Working-Class Writing and the End of Class," European Journal of Cultural Studies Vol 5/3, 2002, pp. 343-363.
- "Urban Narratives: Contesting place and space in some British cinema from the 1980s," Journal of Narrative Theory Vol 31/3 Fall, 2001, pp. 353-380.
- "Figuring the Dispossessed: Images of the Urban Working Class in the Writing of James Kelman," in English: The Journal of the English Association Vol 48 Spring/Autumn 1999, pp. 101-117.
- "Class, Community and ‘structures of feeling’ in some working-class writing from the 1980s," in Literature and History Vol 8/2, Autumn 1999, 44-64.
- "Recovered Perspectives: Gender, Class and Memory in Pat Barker’s Writing," Contemporary Literature Vol 40/4, Winter 1999, 603-627.
Reviews and Review Articles
- Beverley Skeggs, Class, Self and Culture, in Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies (March, 2007).
- "Gary Day, Class, and Andrew Milner, Re-Imagining Cultural Studies: The Promise of Cultural Materialism, in Textual Practice, Summer 2004, pp. 446-452.
- Royce Turner’s, Coal Was Our Life, in Working-Class Notes Fall: 2002, pp. 4-6.
- Andrew Milner’s, Class, in Race & Class: A Journal for Black and Third World Liberation, Vol. 43: No. 1, July 2001, 102-104.
- Ian Haywood’s, Working-Class Fiction, in Textual Practice, July, Vol 14:2, Summer 2000, pp. 421-426.
Work in Progress
Books
- Transitions: European Identities and Work(ed)
Current Research
- April, 2008- April 2011: three year, six partner, European project: "Space, Place and the Historical and contemporary articulations of regional, national and European identities through work and community in areas undergoing economic REstructuring and regeneration (SPHERE).
