Ben Highmore

I teach and write under the broad heading of Cultural Studies. I'm especially interested in thinking about and researching everyday life in Britain and elsewhere since 1945. Currently I'm interested in the relationship between the material environment and widespread cultures of feeling. For instance, I'm interested in how networks of adventure playgrounds emerged in the 1960s and how these supported new ideas and feelings about childhood, freedom, and risk. I've also been working on the way furniture, food, and clothing became agents in the changing landscape of class in the 1970s. This work makes me think about how cultural infrastructures (and the ones I'm interested in are often informal and ad hoc) are central to how we care about the world, and how we care about the past, the future and each other.