This essay builds on Gustav H. Klaus’s defence of the compatibility of left-wing and environmental criticism by exploring developments within degrowth theory. In outlining the degrowth turn in recent writing on ecology, feminism, automation, and postdevelopment, it pays special attention to discussions concerning Marx’s attitudes towards productivism. Subsequently, the implications of Kohei Saito’s intervention in this area are considered: exploring how his analysis challenges degrowth theory’s susceptibility to Prometheanism, while also locating Saito’s dismissal of degrowth theory’s focus on the work ethic’s social basis. This leads to a consideration of new directions for contemporary literary and cultural criticism along these lines, outlining recent studies by Roberto del Valle Alcalá, Alastair Hemmens, Abigail Susik, and Adam Bridgen.

“Degrowth and Marxist Ecology” in British Working-Class and Radical Writing Since 1700, ed. John Goodridge (University of London Press, 2025).

This chapter begins by highlighting an increase in representations of poverty within the cultural mainstream in Britain in the 1920s. It proceeds to consider historical accounts contradicting the claim that this reflects a process of working-class emancipation. Subsequently, drawing on Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault, it explores theoretical frameworks for conceptualising this interest in poverty representation: from Habermas, offering an account of the performative role of the cultural sphere in the early twentieth century; from Foucault, the suggestion of emerging neoliberal strategies for fostering productivity. Both lines of interpretation are illustrated with examples taken from social exploration literature, documentary film, and Agatha Christie’s 1922 novel The Secret Adversary. Ultimately, this essay argues that the shift towards foregrounding the experiences of the poor in 1920s mainstream culture reflects less an emancipatory development - and more an effort both to legitimise capitalist structures and to enable capitalist assimilation.

“Platforming the Poor in 1920s Britain: Habermas, Foucault, and the Politics of Display” in The 1920s: A Decade of Modern British Fiction, ed. Nick Hubble (Bloomsbury, 2025).

Explores György Lukács’s reflections on the relationship between the eighteenth-century novel and early modern capitalism. As such, this essay offers a critical overview of Lukács’s treatment of this subject in two major works – The Theory of the Novel and The Historical Novel – in the process, focusing on the evolution of his approach as a literary critic and contextualising this in relation to his wider theoretical writings. Ultimately, it seeks to demonstrate how the later Lukács’s critical approach differs from contemporary criticism dealing with the same subject, in particular concerning his engagement with the ramifications of his analysis for the present.


“György Lukács and the Eighteenth-Century Novel.” Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 71-2 (2023): 127-144.

This essay explores the emergence of a new mode of representing the poor that became dominant in Britain in the early twentieth century – a mode in which the “point of view” of impoverished people themselves was increasingly foregrounded. Focusing on examples drawn from documentary film, Mass Observation, and the publications of Victor Gollancz Ltd., the article considers how, while marking a formal shift away from a late Victorian discourse of poverty, this development maintains that earlier discourse’s disciplinary agenda. In examining three case studies – John Taylor, Arthur Elton, Edgar Anstey, and Ruby Grierson’s Housing Problems; Humphrey Jennings and Charles Madge’s Mass Observation Day Survey; and H. Beales and R. Lambert’s Memoirs of the Unemployed – it argues that the new point of view mode marked a continuation in the twentieth century of the outlook that shaped representations of poverty in the late Victorian era.

“Representing the Poor: The Emergence of the ‘Point-of-View’ Mode in Interwar Documentary Film, Mass Observation and the Publications of Victor Gollancz Ltd.” Twentieth-Century Literature 68-1 (2022): 1-24.

An investigation of representations of rural outsider figures in Richard Jefferies, W.H. Hudson, and Edward Thomas. This essay begins by suggesting that there has been limited recognition of these authors before moving on to explore Raymond Williams’ critique of various ways of representing the countryside that can be found in their writing: including the fetishisation of the past and the creation of an overly simplistic binary between country and city. Against this, it is proposed that Williams’ objection to texts that falsely idealise rural life may be seen to reflect a progress-oriented ideological bias, which in the context of the present environmental crisis might be viewed as problematic. This paper subsequently returns to these three authors in order to determine whether their representations of rural outsider figures can be seen to offer an indirect critique of the left’s adoption of the capitalistic fantasy of progress, or whether they should indeed be viewed as a reactionary defence of a largely imaginary idealised past.

“‘Progressing Backwards’: Rural Outsider Figures in Richard Jefferies, W.H. Hudson and Edward Thomas.” English Studies 103-10 (2021): 1-25.

An investigation of representations of the figure of the tramp in interwar social exploration literature. This article begins by exploring disciplinary attempts to highlight the apparent failure of the homeless to contribute within early social exploration literature, offering James Greenwood as an example. It then considers Mark Freeman's claims regarding a tendency in later pre-war texts within the genre towards greater levels of personal identification – before using the example of Mary Higgs to suggest that the disciplinary impulse nonetheless remained in such works. In then looking at interwar social exploration texts by Frank Jennings, Frank Gray, and George Orwell, an argument is developed that during the interwar period the tendency noted by Freeman was significantly heightened, as authors went to much greater lengths to understand the experience of being homeless. Ultimately, however, this development is seen to have done little to alter the disciplinary outlook of these authors. On the contrary, it is argued that in broadcasting their allegiance to the poor their texts can be seen to indicate the emergence of a survival strategy that enabled the perpetuation of a productivist agenda in the face of working-class enfranchisement and political representation – a strategy that this essay terms disciplinary subterfuge.

“Representing the Tramp in British Interwar Social Exploration Literature:  Frank Jennings, Frank Gray and George Orwell.” English Studies 103-6 (2022): 871-898.

Explores representations of witchcraft in relation to Julia Kristeva’s 1980 essay Powers of Horror. This essay begins by investigating the genesis of Dario Argento and Daria Nicolodi’s depiction of witchcraft in their 1977 horror film Suspiria, drawing on historical studies of witchcraft by Ronald Hutton and Marion Gibson. In particular, it examines the characterization of the witches’ coven as an all-female, all-powerful death cult – before proposing that Kristeva’s essay on the abject can be seen to explain this specific conceptualization, in line with Barbara Creed’s analysis of how horror film has inherited the role of ‘purifying’ the abject from religious ritual. The second half of the article then focuses on David Kajganich and Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 remake of Suspiria, reflecting on how the later film can be seen to attempt to redeem the association between witchcraft and abjectness. In doing so, it reflects on how the attempt to rescue the witch while maintaining an association with the abject is contiguous with other contemporary depictions of witchcraft. It is proposed that such efforts amount to a Foucauldian attempt at a ‘reverse discourse’ celebrating the subversive potential of an initially derogatory identity formation – but that Kristeva’s writing points to the limitations of appropriating the abject in this way.

“Appropriating the Abject: Witchcraft in Dario Argento and Daria Nicolodi’s Suspiria (1977) and David Kajganich and Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 Remake.” New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 18-1&2 (2020): 43-59.

This chapter examines representations of the living spaces of the precariat in Ken Loach’s films. It examines the effects of deindustrialization, the collapse of social housing, and the evolution of the job market, together with how these developments have resulted in precarious living and new housing solutions in the form of squats, hostels, and cheap rented property. It then considers the different strategies used by Loach to raise social awareness of these problems and reflects on the wider meaning of Loach’s depiction of the precariat: asking whether the shift away from a fixation on working-class culture signals a need for a parallel re-imagining of left-wing anti-capitalist resistance.


“Precarious Living in the Films of Ken Loach” in Living with Strangers: Bedsits and Boarding-houses in Modern English Life, Literature and Film (London: Bloomsbury, 2018): 145-160.

“Alistair Robinson’s Victorian Vagrancy: A Cultural History of the Wandering Poor.”  Journal of Victorian Culture: Web. 23 May 2022.

​“Consumerism, Waste, and Re-Use.”  European Journal of American Studies 2017-2: Web. 1 Aug. 2017.



“Luke Seaber’s Incognito Social Investigation in British Literature.” George Orwell Society Journal 11 (2016): 30-37.



“Robert Colls’ George Orwell: English Rebel.” George Orwell Studies 1 (2016): 112-121.