Goldsmiths - University of London

Angela McRobbie

Programme Convenor for MA in Gender & Culture

Areas of supervision

Recent and current PhD topics
Indie Music Scenes in London and Austin Texas
Young Women, Performing Arts Education and New Labour (AHRC)
Women Journalists and Occupational Identities in Lifestyle Supplements (AHRC)
‘Professional Girlfriends’ in Cambodia (ORSAS Award)
Artist Communities in London and Berlin (Canadian Scholarship)
Screenwriting as Creative Labour
Young Korean Women and Educational Migration.

Research interests

The early research by Angela McRobbie (1976-1986) focused on young women and social class, popular culture, subculture, music and style. Between the mid 1980s and mid 1990s her attention turned to cultural production in the context of young people’s everyday activities (eg music production, fashion production). The best known work from this time is ‘Second Hand Dresses and the Role of the Ragmarket’, ‘Shut Up and Dance’ and the book Postmodernism and Popular Culture (1994). Later in 1998 she published a detailed, interview based analysis of the working lives of young fashion designers in London ( British Fashion Design 1998) and this was followed by a series of essays reflecting on themes connected to this research (In the Culture Society 1999). This general area of research has emerged as a long term interest in new forms of work in the creative sector.

Current research (2000 onwards)
covers three fields of specialism; gender and feminist theory and cultural studies, and ‘precarious labour’ in art worlds and in the new culture industries. Angela McRobbie also writes about the work of key cultural theorists including Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Paul Gilroy, Gayatri Spivak and others (McRobbie 2005, 2008). In her forthcoming projects further attention will be given to urban cultural studies as context for changing world of work.

Angela McRobbie co-convenes and teaches on the MA Gender and Culture run jointly by the Department of Sociology and the Department of Media and communication.

Angela McRobbie also helped to set up, and teaches on the MA Culture Industries based in the Centre for Cultural Studies.

Gender, Feminist Theory and Cultural Studies

To access as pdf chapters from Angela McRobbie’s early work (1976-1981) including her well-known study of Jackie magazine, also on young women and youth culture, all written while studying at Birmingham University, Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, please see the publications section.

Precarious Labour in the New Culture Industries

Angela McRobbie’s current research on the ‘new culture industry’ will appear in 2011 as a book titled Be Creative: Precarious Labour in Art and Cultural Worlds, London , Berlin , Glasgow. This book undertakes a theorisation of precarious labour drawing on the work of Michel Foucault. It examines the world of freelance, casualised creative work in three cities, it pays particular attention to micro-enterprises of creative labour including fashion design, art- working, multi-media, curating, arts administration, and so on. Chapters include ‘Foucault, Human Capital and Precarious Labour in the Creative Sector’, ‘Feminism and Immaterial Labour’ and ‘The Politics of Internships and Unpaid Labour’. Earlier work published on this topic include , ‘From Holloway to Hollywood? Happiness at Work in the New Cultural Economy’, (eds) P. Du Gay and M. Pryke, Cultural Economy 2002. ‘Club to Company’ in Cultural Studies vol 16 2002 (re printed for many different publications and translated into several languages). ‘Everyone is Creative?’ in (eds) T. Bennett and E. De Silva Contemporary Culture and Everyday Life pp 186-199, 2004. ‘Making a Living as a Visual Artists in London’s Small Scale Creative Economy’ in (eds) D.Power and A.J. Scott The Production of Culture 2006.

Selected publications

Angela McRobbie’s most recent book is The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change which was published by Sage in September 2008. It has subsequently been warmly reviewed extensively and was ‘Book of the Week’ in the THES. The book also provided an opening frame for discussion on BBC Radio 4 Women’s Hour , the ‘future of feminism’, and the work published in the book has been presented at conferences and events in many places across the world in recent years. Short or early versions of several chapters have already appeared in various journals. Chapter One ‘Post- Feminism and Popular Culture’ has appeared in seven different journals and collections including Feminist Media Studies (2004) , All About the Girl (eds) A. Harris and M. Fine,2004, Interrogating Post-feminism (eds) S. Bruzzi and D. Negra 2006 and most recently in Media /Cultural Studies; Critical Approaches (eds) R. Hammer and D. Kellner, 2009. Chapter Three ‘Top Girls: Young Women and the New Sexual Contract’ has appeared in a short version in Cultural Studies, vol 21 2007 and translated into French for Nouvelles Questions Feministes vol 28, no 1, 2009 pp14-35. An edited version has also appeared in Feelbad Britain: How to Make It Better (eds) P .Devine, A Pearman and D Purdy, 2009 pp 208-222, and also in Identity in Question (eds) A.Elliott and P.Du Gay, 2009. Chapter Four ‘Illegible Rage’ is translated into Italian as ‘La rabbia indeciferabile: giovani donne e disturbi post-feministi ‘and published in Studi Culturali no 2 August 2008 pp 187- 201. A short version, delivered as a Public Lecture at the London School of Economics 2007, can be found on the LSE website. A version of Chapter Five is already translated into German as ‘Make-Over TV und post-feministische symbolische gewalt ‘for Symbolische Gewalt: Herrschaftsanalyse nach Pierre Bourdieu (eds) Schmidt and Woltersdorff, UVK Verlagsgesellschaft pp 169- 195 2008. An edited version of Chapter Six ‘Inside and Outside the Feminist Academy’ has been published in Australian Feminist Studies, November2008.The book as a whole is being translated into German and will be published with VS Verlag in November 2009.

Recent relevant publications

A.McRobbie (2008) ‘Pornographic Permutations’ in The Communication Review Vol 11, pp 225- 236.
A.McRobbie (2008) ‘A Response to Susie Orbach; On Generation and Femininity ’ in Studies on Gender and Sexuality, vol 9 Issue 3 pp 239-245.
A.McRobbie (2009) Ulrike Ottinger and the Autobiography of Art Cinema’ in Screen, 50, 260-263.

Future Work in Gender and Feminist Theory and Cultural Studies

A.McRobbie (2010) Sexuality, Gender and Generation: Postfeminist Art and Culture.
With chapters on the ‘New Pornography’, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, Tacita Dean. Also on Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, Alan Warner’s Morvern Callar, Helen Walsh’s Brass, and on Wetlands by Charlotte Roche. Chapter also on hip hop sexuality and final section on post-feminism in French literature and film including ‘Baissez Moi and Romance.

Recent other publications
Angela McRobbie (2009) ‘Reflections on Precarious Work in the Cultural Sector’ in (eds) B.Lange, A. Kalandides, B. Stober and I. Wellmann Governance der Kreativwirtschaft : Diagnosen und Handlungsoptionen, Transcript Verlag, pp 123-139.
Angela McRobbie (2006) ‘Vulnerability, Violence and (Cosmopolitan) Ethics: Butler’s Precarious Life in British Journal of Sociology vol 57, no 1.
Angela McRobbie (2005) The Uses of Cultural Studies Sage London, translated into Chinese for Peking University Press. Also into Czech.

Single authored books

1. A. McRobbie (2008) The Aftermath of Feminism, Sage, London
2. A.McRobbie (2005) The Uses of Cultural Studies, Sage, London
3. A.McRobbie (1999) In the Culture Society, Routledge London
4. A.McRobbie (1998) British fashion Design Routledge London
5. A.McRobbie (1994) Postmodernism and Popular Culture Routledge London
6. A.McRobbie (1990) Feminism and Youth Culture, Macmillan Basingstoke.

See also
P.Gilroy, L.Grossberg and A.McRobbie (eds) (2000) Without Guarantees: In Honour of Stuart Hall, Verso London.

Work also available in
(eds) K.Gelder and S Thornton (1997) The Subcultures Reader, Routledge.

Early work of Angela McRobbie
PDFS for download from the early Birmingham work of Angela McRobbie, also available in German:

Girls and Subcultures (with Jenny Garber, 1977) [pdf]
The Politics of Feminist Research: Between Talk, Text and Action (1978) [pdf]
Jackie magazine: Romantic Individualism and the Teenage Girl [pdf]
Settling Accounts with Subcultures: A Feminist Critique (1981) [pdf]
The Culture of Working Class Girls [pdf]

Grants & awards

Grants awarded
ESRC Seminar Competition September 2009- September 2011, ‘Young Women, Mobilities and Vulnerability’ (With Prof Carrie Paechter, Education Department Goldsmiths).

Grants due for submission
November 2009 EU 7th Frame (with Prof Lisa Adkins Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths) ‘Young Women and the Changing World of Training and Work: Employment and Careers in 5 European Cities’.