Carole Sweeney has worked in both Modern Language and English and Comparative Literature Departments since 1999. She has recently published a book called Michel Houellebecq and The Literature of Despair (2013) that looks at neoliberalism, anti-feminism and the representation of Islam in this writer's work. She has also published on race, modernism and the arts and is currently working on a book on British avant garde writing, 1945-1970.