About

About

I am an independent researcher who specialises in modern and contemporary literature. My research explores the relationship between the novel, capitalist social forms, and the representation of collectivity. These interests are reflected in two current studies: ‘Histories of Capital’, which charts the destiny of social labour has it has been reimagined by contemporary historical novels, from the late eighteenth century to the far futures of science fiction; and ‘Spaces of Capital’, which considers how novels have chronicled what Mike Davis calls the ‘planet of slums’, focussing in particular, on situations where workers are external to productive labour – as measured by the wage – but nonetheless subject to the law of value. As the possibility of securing a permanent academic position has all but disappeared, I have become more invested in a third project, one which takes Ricardo Piglia’s concepts of ‘outlaw appropriation’ and ‘imaginary labor’ as a starting point for further speculation. In an era of bad jobs and intensifying exploitation, Piglia’s work offers a way of reading the ‘pretty stories’ of con artists, hustlers, and grifters, as both a refusal of work and its remythologization. Retaining their faith in the omnipotence of literature, grifters are attached to and sustain the fantasy of making a living through words, language, and collaboration. Prior to this, I was an Associate Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, where I also taught as a Sessional Lecturer in the Department of English, Theatre and Creative Writing. My first book, Peripheralizing DeLillo: Surplus Populations, Capitalist Crisis, and the Novel was published in January 2022 by Bloomsbury Academic. Occasionally I write poetry.