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Anthony Hutchison
Assistant Professor in American Intellectual and Cultural History, Faculty of Arts
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Teaching Summary
I have taught core and optional modules in US literature, history, thought and culture. This teaching has mostly been text-based with primary works studied ranging from seventeenth century Puritan… read more
Research Summary
I am currently working on a critical-biographical study of the American writer John Williams. This has been supported by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant.
I have taught core and optional modules in US literature, history, thought and culture. This teaching has mostly been text-based with primary works studied ranging from seventeenth century Puritan sermons to twenty-first century manifestos related to digital culture. I have also taught at postgraduate level for a number of years in similar areas.
The doctoral theses I have so far supervised to completion in many ways reflect the multi- and interdisciplinary nature of my teaching and research interests. They have covered topics such as the philosophies of Richard Rorty and Stanley Cavell; the twentieth century African-American literary canon; the fiction of suburbia and post-suburbia; the culture of the American Left and Latin America in the 1980s; and the 60s protest memoir.
At present I am supervising work that explores masculinity and mid-twentieth century nuclear shelter culture as well as a comparative study of the "third way" approach to welfare policy that was a feature of the New Democrats under Bill Clinton and New Labour in the Blair-Brown years,
Past Research
My previous research was a study of American political fiction. It involved studies of several major works by Gore Vidal, Lionel Trilling, Russell Banks and Philip Roth. I have written on American music and have also recently completed work on some contemporary American fiction by George Saunders and Dave Eggers as well as a piece on the concept of "charisma" in US political fiction. I have also published on the status and treatment of Abraham Lincoln within US intellectual history. I would welcome the opportunity to supervise postgraduate students on any of these or related topics.
Future Research
In the longer term I have an interest in pursuing research on post WWII Anglo-American thought and literary culture. I am particularly interested in race-class tensions and how these were understood and negotiated by liberal intellectuals (writers, artists, commentators).