Swansea University's College of Arts and Humanities invites applications for a fully funded PhD studentship in English Literature.

The PhD will be supervised by Professor Daniel Williams (English Language and Literature) and Professor Julian Preece (Languages, Translation and Communication) with the support of the staff in the Richard Burton Archives (RBA) in Swansea University Library which holds the Raymond Williams Papers.

The objective of the PhD is to examine Raymond Williams’ engagement with twentieth-century critical theory, Marxist thought and imaginative literature emerging from the European mainland, in particular as translated from French, German and Italian, by such thinkers and writers as Roland Barthes, Bertolt Brecht, Lucien Goldmann, Antonio Gramsci, Georg Lukacs, and Jean-Paul Sartre (or a selection thereof). To trace how Williams’ reception of their writings in reviews and lectures inflected the development of his own practice as a cultural critic, his self-understanding as a “Welsh European”, and his analysis of critical theory and imaginative writing in his major books, Drama from Ibsen to Brecht (1968), Marxism and Literature (1977), and his final, posthumously published The Politics of Modernism (1989), as well as creative writing, such as his play on the life of Stalin, Koba (1966) and novel, Loyalties (1985).

This project will situate Williams’ work in a European radical tradition for the first time, utilising the Williams papers at the RBA, the National Library of Wales (NLW) and elsewhere as appropriate. The Williams holdings include a large number of reviews of English translations of leading Continental thinkers and critics, whose work at this time was being rapidly discovered, often devoured by British readers, both within and outside the academy, who were interested in the intersections between culture and politics. Around 15% of the books he reviewed for journals and newspapers, such as the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, and the Guardian, fall into the project’s purview. Williams acted as a conduit in the English-speaking world for this ground-breaking work which has now become mainstream. The archive also holds unpublished letters, notes, and a lecture course on the Frankfurt School which have not been examined in this context.

Academic Requirements:

Candidates must have a first or upper second class honours degree, and ideally a master’s degree, in a relevant discipline.

The ideal candidate will have:

Proven interests in Literature and Thought.

Knowledge of one or more of the following languages (or readiness to acquire that knowledge): French, German, Italian, Welsh.

A willingness to participate in international exchange, e.g. through spending a semester at a partner university abroad.

Residency Criteria:

Due to funding restrictions, this studentship is open to UK/EU applicants only.
Information:
http://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/academic/artshumanities/ltm/preecej/
https://www.swan.ac.uk/crew/staff/drdanielwilliams/