Goldsmiths - University of London

Professor John Hutnyk BA PhD

Blog: http://hutnyk.wordpress.com
Twitter: @sputnyk

• Authored books and edited volumes by Professor John Hutnyk

Summary of Research

Three single authored monographs (1996, 2000, 2004) each extensively reviewed and cited, and marking distinct research areas: urban studies, music, cultural theory.One co-authored book (Diaspora and Hybridity 2005) and three edited book collections (1996, 1999, Jan 2006), each making openings for new research. With regard to my longstanding investigations into the politics of tourism and urbanism, both the monograph The Rumour of Calcutta: Tourism, Charity and the Poverty of Representation (Zed books 1996) and the edited collection "Travel Worlds: Journeys in Contemporary Cultural Politics" (Zed 1999) were widely reviewed. Since the mid 1990s I have been researching on music and politics. Producing a monograph "Critique of Exotica: Music Politics and the Culture Industry" (Pluto 2000), the co-authored book Diaspora and Hybridity (Sage 2005), the edited collection "Dis-Orienting Rhythms: the politics of the New Asian Dance Music" (Zed 1996) and special issues on "Music and Politics" in the journals Postcolonial Studies (Vol 1,3 1998) and Theory, Culture and Society (17.3 2000). In 2004, Pluto Press agreed to publish a collection of essays called " Bad Marxism: Cultural Studies and Capitalism". This latter volume consolidates my research at the intersections of anthropology, cultural studies and philosophy which continued with the special festshrifft volume " Celebrating Transgression: Method and Politics in Anthropological Studies of Culture" (co-edited 2006) on anthropological method.

As a researcher I have always worked in collaborative projects with other scholars. In particular this has occurred around the Transl-asia group, which takes as its themes South Asian diaspora, cultural politics and contemporary transnational movements. I can refer to some twelve volumes of varied work from this group, more than a dozen conferences and workshops (six of which I have organized). Through this group I have been instrumental in assisting younger researchers find employment in colleges and universities in the UK. Our research program continues with an edited volume to be called "A Postcolonial People?" (2006 Hurst). Current research involves work on film, documentary and television, the fruit of teaching on the MA Visual Anthropology and the Anthropology and Representation course (see under teaching) and on Borders. A big monograph is 60% complete, to be called Colour TV: Black and White Life (publisher interest confirmed). Another research program involves collaboration with Julian Henriques in an interdisciplinary (music, theory, politics, ethnography) project around the notion of Sonic Diaspora and I am a long way towards completing a book to be called Pantomime Terror.

I am developing a research project on Trinketization and this has been in collaboration with Klaus Peter Koepping, Michael Dutton and Joel McKim among others. It extends early work on cultural artifacts (souvenirs, music, film) and objects in theory – Marx's metaphors and obsessions with coats, linen, brandy, bibles, soup recipes etc., - and objects in films – such as the snowdome in Citizen Kane, and in Benjamin and Adorno's work – the snowdome as miniature tv etc etc. This is new speculative research – explored on my blog Trinketization as well. Who knows where it will end up?

Finally I retain a longstanding academic and political links with Australian scholars and activists, such as Peter Phipps, Angie Mitropoulos, Ben Ross and Linda Leung (visiting fellow at Goldsmiths in 2005) on issues of detention and incarceration in the UK and Australia. I gained initial grant money for this from the Association of Commonwealth Universities and Professor Paul James and Peter Phipps have substantial funding from the ARC (I was a Visiting Fellow at their Globalism Institute in 2003).

Summary of Teaching and Admin. As a supervisor I took on my first PhD students in 1999 at Goldsmiths and seven of them have completed. I supervise a further 18 PhD students at present. Of which I have three completing in the next 3 to 6 months. My PhD students have been successful in attracting funding from the ESRC (6 grants) AHRC (5 grants) and the ORS (4 grants), as well as seven with overseas scholarships. Two students are enrolled at Goldsmiths as combined PhD candidate in a special agreement negotiated with Universities in Germany (Frankfurt and FU Berlin).

In terms of curriculum design, among other courses such as Methods of Cultural Analysis, General Principles of Anthropology, for eight years I ran the largest option course in the Anthropology department: Anthropology and Representation (MA, UG Theory and practice; some 80+ ethnographic films produced, and over 130 photographic essays). I currently teach a course on Marx's Capital and the PhD Seminar in the Centre for Cultural Studies, plus reading groups on Capital and the works of V.I.Lenin, Adorno, Freud, Spivak, or Marx, as the mood takes us.

Selected publications

Authored Books:

Bad Marxism: Capitalism and Cultural Studies. Pluto Press, London (June) 2004

Critique of Exotica: Music; Politics and the Culture Industry. Pluto Press: London. 2000

The Rumour of Calcutta: Tourism, Charity and the Poverty of Representation. Zed Books, London. 1996

Diaspora and Hybridity (co-authored with Virinder Kalra and Raminder Kaur). Sage: London 2005

Edited Volumes:

Celebrating Transgression: Method and Politics in Anthropological Studies of Culture (co-ed with Ursula Rao). Berghahn: Oxford 2006

Travel Worlds: Journeys in Contemporary Cultural Politics. (co-ed with Raminder Kaur). Zed Books: London. 1999 
 
Dis-orientating Rhythms: The Politics of the New Asian Dance Music. (co-ed with Sanjay Sharma & Ashwani Sharma). Zed Books: London. 1996

'Music and Politics' special issue of Theory, Culture and Society Vol 17 no 3 2000 (co-ed with Sanjay Sharma)

'Music and Politics' special issue of Postcolonial Studies Vol 1 no 3 1998, (co-ed with Virinder Kalra)

'Publicity' section in the journal Left Curve No 29 2005 www.leftcurve.org