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Professor, Durham University

My research is interested in questions concerning state surveillance, censorship, and subsidy of literature and culture. I am currently leading a project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, examining the work of Britain's Political Warfare Executive during World War Two and its interactions with a range of writers and intellectuals. My book, British Writers and MI5 Surveillance, 1930-1960, looked at the MI5 records held on key figures such as Auden, Spender, Koestler, Orwell, and others, and tried to show how many of these authors were not passive victims of the secret state but also conscious movers within it.

I have also published various shorter pieces in this area, such as on governmental involvement in film and theatre censorship, security monitoring of radical literary magazines, and (with David Bradshaw) the collaboration between Ezra Pound and the fascist propagandist James Strachey Barnes. My research also extends to more contemporary issues, with other recent publications looking at depictions of surveillance in film and TV works such as Skyfall and Black Mirror.

Experience

  • –present
    Professor of English Studies, Durham University