Dr David Wilkinson
Senior Lecturer
My profile
Biography
I am Senior Lecturer in English in the department. I specialise in the area of popular musical and subcultural studies and critical theory. My research considers countercultural legacies in Britain. How were they bound up with the political shifts of their eras? What is the significance of their aesthetic strategies? What can we learn from the ways they were produced and received? How did factors like class and education play a part? And whose interests are served by the ways that countercultures get represented, remembered and reworked - in literature, film, TV, marketing and other cultural forms? These questions inform my monograph Post-Punk, Politics and Pleasure in Britain (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). They also guide my current research project and second monograph in progress, Days of The Underground, on how the legacies of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture inform contemporary culture and politics. The project establishes historical connections between the counterculture and a range of present-day concerns including work and technology; the climate crisis; and mental health, as well as urban policy and tensions of national belonging.
In turn, this feeds into my teaching on undergraduate modules such as Cultures of Resistance (which I lead) and Cultures of Life and Death, as well as the MA module Practices.
Beyond popular music and subcultures, I’m interested in utopian studies, urban studies, the avant-garde/modernism and critical theory, especially cultural materialism.
Academic and professional qualifications
After completing a degree in English at Manchester Metropolitan University for which I received the highest 1st class mark of my cohort, I worked, moved to Berlin and travelled the United States. I applied for AHRC funding to take up postgraduate study at the University of Manchester, where I won full awards to pursue an MA in Post-1900 Literatures, Theories and Cultures followed by a PhD with Professor David Alderson as my supervisor. My thesis drew on critical theory to examine the politics of British post-punk, establishing my current research interests and forming the basis of my first monograph.
After my PhD, I took up the role of research assistant on the Leverhulme project ‘Punk, Politics and British Youth Culture 1976-1984’ alongside Professor Matthew Worley and Professor John Street, contributing to the development of a research methodology that brought together critical theory and cultural studies with archival historical research and political economy to shed new light on the punk and post-punk era.
External examiner roles
PhDs
-External examiner for Grace Healy: ‘There is No Authority But Yourself: Tracing first-wave British punk philosophy, from Nietzsche to Rotten’, University of Huddersfield February 2022
-External examiner for Bruno Verner, ‘Spaced Out in Paradise: Post Punk Futurities, Politics, Transitions, and Other Voices in Brazil’, Goldsmiths University October 2022
Expert reviewer for academic publishers
-Expert reviewer for Palgrave Macmillan and Manchester University Press on subculture/counterculture/popular music related submissions
-Peer reviewer for journals including European Journal of Cultural Studies, Cultural History, Punk + Post-Punk and Key Words
Editorial Board membership
I am on the editorial board of Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism and Punk & Post-Punk.
Consultancy and Advisory Roles
I have worked with Manchester Digital Music Archive, advising on their exhibition Queer Noise, and with the 40th anniversary Punk London festival funded by the Mayor of London’s office.
Community Links and Impact
-Curated Manchester Digital Music Archive’s digital archiving of long running and influential post-punk zine City Fun
-Public speaking for a range of organisations, events and causes, including Home Cinema, Louder Than Words, Manchester Histories Festival, LGBT History Month, UNISON, UCU, the Working Class Movement Library, Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention
-Journalistic work for publications including Tribune, OpenDemocracy and The Conversation
-Exhibition with Manchester Left Writers: ‘The Powerhouse Liberation Front’, Castlefield Gallery 2016 funded by the Jerwood Foundation
Other Academic Service (Administration and Management)
-Level 6 Stage Tutor, 2021-2022
-Unit leader, Manchester and the City 2020-
-e-learning co-ordinator, 2017-2020
Teaching
Why do I teach?
I’ve benefited hugely from the historical expansion of higher education and I’m committed to the principle of equal and inclusive access to this opportunity. As an English undergraduate, I discovered the legacy of Cultural Studies and critical theory, taking the opportunity to analyse popular culture alongside literary classics.
My study was an exhilarating time. It fed what I got up to creatively and (perhaps most importantly) helped me develop the skills to ask big questions about the world and the place of culture within it. These are skills that you can transfer to many different contexts of employment. More vitally, though, an English degree at its best produces inquisitive, critical citizens who never stop learning and who have the confidence to question, dissent and imagine anew. Crucial to this process for me were some fantastic tutors who combined intellectual rigour with warmth, humour and a willingness to encourage and expand my interests. A hard act to follow - but my own teaching is inspired by what they did for me.
Postgraduate teaching
Practices
Supervision
I welcome PhD applications in the areas of countercultural and post-punk studies, as well subcultures, popular music, postwar British culture and critical theory more broadly.
I am lead supervisor on Luke Cartledge’s NWCDTP funded PhD ‘Go Get Organised: A Materialist Study of Labour Organising in the British Music Industry Since 1976’
Between 2019 and 2021 I was Director of Studies on Molly Walker’s PhD ‘I Am a Crooked Man: Post-Punk and Masculinity’
I have been on the supervisory team of the following completed PhD projects:
-Spencer Meeks (University Scholarship), Corrective Lenses: Reading the Neuro-Turn
-Andrea Ros (University Scholarship), Gothic Contagion: Reproductive Themes in Gothic Representations of Infectious Disease
Research outputs
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Exhibitions
Bradbury, N., Hanson, S., Dickinson, B. (2016) The Powerhouse Liberation Movement. [Exhibition] Castlefield Gallery, 6/5/2016 -
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Books (authored/edited/special issues)
Wilkinson, D. Post-Punk, Politics and Pleasure in Britain. Springer.
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Chapters in books
Wilkinson, D. ''The British Counterculture, Utopia and Class'.' The Cambridge Companion to British Utopian Literature and Culture. Cambridge University Press,
Wilkinson, D.B. ''Pam ponders Paul Morley’s cat’: City Fun and the politics of post-punk.' In Gildart, K., Gough-Yates, A., Lincoln, S., Osgerby, B., Robinson, L., Steet, J., Webb, P., Worley, M. (ed.) Ripped, Torn and Cut Pop, Politics and Punk Fanzines from 1976. Manchester University Press,
Wilkinson, D.B. 'Agents of Change: Cultural Materialism, Post-Punk and the Politics of Popular Music.' Youth Culture and Social Change Making a Difference by Making a Noise. Springer,
Wilkinson, D.B. 'Punk and Sexuality.' Punk Is Dead Modernity Killed Every Night. John Hunt Publishing,
Wilkinson, D.B. 'Blue Monday: A Fact Sheet.' The Blue Monday Diaries In the Studio with New Order. Plexus Publishing,
Wilkinson, D. 'Agents of Change: Post-Punk and the Present.' Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music. pp. 189-203.
Wilkinson, D. 'Desires Bound with Briars: Freedom, Pleasure and Feminism.' Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music. pp. 155-188.
Wilkinson, D. 'Is Natural in It? Radical Theory and Educational Capital.' Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music. pp. 77-114.
Wilkinson, D. 'Introduction: Shake Your Cosy Attitudes.' Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music. pp. 1-10.
Wilkinson, D. 'Post-Punk, Thatcherism and the Libertarian Left.' Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music. pp. 37-76.
Wilkinson, D. 'Post-Punk and the Politics of Postwar Popular Music.' Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music. pp. 11-35.
Wilkinson, D. 'The Politics of the Post-Punk Working Class Autodidact.' Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music. pp. 115-154.
Wilkinson, D.B. 'Is Natural In It? Gang of Four, Scritti Politti and Gramsci.' Litpop: Writing and Popular Music. Routledge,
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Media
Wilkinson, D.B. Post-Punk Vinyl Culture.
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Internet publications
Wilkinson, D.B. Mark E Smith: Obituary.
Wilkinson, D.B. The Role of Manchester's Gay Village in the Northern Powerhouse. https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/david-wilkinson/role-of-manchester-s-gay-village-in-northern-powerhouse.
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Journal articles
Wilkinson, D. '‘The drop-outs are anticipating future economic policy’: work, class and countercultural legacies in Britain.' Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism, (19) pp. 45-61.
Wilkinson, D. 'Mark E. Smith, Brexit Britain and the Aesthetics and Politics of the Working Class Weird.' Open Library of Humanities, 6(2) pp. 11-11.
Street, J., Worley, M., Wilkinson, D. ''Does it threaten the status quo?' Elite responses to British punk, 1976-1978.' Popular Music, 37(2) pp. 271-289.
Wilkinson, D., Worley, M., Street, J. ''I Wanna See Some History': Recent Writing on British Punk.' Contemporary European History, 26(2) pp. 397-411.
Wilkinson, D.B. 'Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t Have?): Punk, Politics and Same-Sex Passion.' Key Words: A Journal of Cultural Materialism, (13) pp. 57-76.
Wilkinson, D. '‘Prole Art Threat’: The Fall, the Blue Orchids and the politics of the post-punk working-class autodidact.' Punk & Post Punk, 3(1) pp. 67-82.