in 2015 i completed an MA in creative and critical writing at the university of sussex, and now i’m studying for a practice-based PhD in utopian poetics and experimental writing at the university of westminster.

i’ll be posting some of my essays or parts of essays on here.  they can be a bit experimental sometimes.  i’ll usually post them unedited, exactly as they were submitted, unless i end up working on a redraft.  that means that they can be a bit rough and a bit raw, but they are what they are.

some of them have a real energy about them – it might be an energy of scattered confusion, or an energy of raw zeal – and there’s a vibrancy to them that’s perhaps not so academic, but it is infused with unmitigated ‘me’.  i’ve been criticised for this in some of my feedback, and it’s interesting for me to note – as i study the utopian philosophy of Ernst Bloch – that much of his writing was received in the same way.  i’m not saying it’s perfect.  mostly, it’s deserved criticism in its way.  but it doesn’t hurt to blow away some of the academic cobwebs, strip a few leaves from the trees, and send the waves crashing in from time to time.

so i’m offering them to you as a gift.  as they are: unashamedly my words.

predictably, most of them explore utopian theory in a variety of ways and in response to a variety of literary texts.  some explore experimental/avant-garde literature, mostly also in response to utopian literary theory.

as always, i welcome your comments and opinions.

just select ‘Essays’ in the drop down list of categories for your smorgasbord of delights…