Dr Madeleine Davis, BA, MA, PhD, (London)
Lecturer

Office hours:

Semester 2, 2012, Thursday 2-3pm and Friday 1-2pm

Research interests:

My major research interest is in the history of socialist political thought. I have focused especially on the post-1956 British New Left, a current whose key thinkers included EP Thompson, John Saville, Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams, Ralph Miliband, Perry Anderson, Tom Nairn and other well known left intellectuals.  My research here has various strands. I have been interested in examining the specificity of New Left ideas within the British ideological context, and its role in ‘brokering’ new developments in Marxist thought within Britain, as well as the contribution of its thought to a wider critical reworking of Marxist theory. I have also written on the relationship between the New Left and the Labour Party, and on its contribution to wider 1968 radicalism. The book I am currently working on, The British New Left and its Legacy, is a synoptic study of the New Left’s political thought and (to a lesser extent) activism, organized around three broad themes: redefining socialism, political organization and theorizing culture.  

An Associate Fellow of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, I have a secondary research interest in aspects of Hispanic and Latin American politics. One strand of my past work focused on the Pinochet case and its implications and effects, especially in terms of securing accountability for past human rights violations in countries that have undergone transitions from authoritarian rule.

I am a member of the PSA Labour Movements Specialist Group and of the PSA Marxism Specialist Group.

I have supervised doctoral work on topics including: ‘Poststructuralist readings of Marx’; ‘Dialectics and critical social theory’; ‘Genesis, development and consequences of of post-Marxist critical thought’; ‘The politics of justice in post-Milosevic Serbia’. 

 I welcome applications from prospective PhD students in any of my areas of interest. These include:

    • the history of socialist thought, especially in Britain
    • the thought and activism of individuals and movements associated with the post-1956 New Left
    • Marxist political thought.

Publications:

Books/monographs

The British New Left and its Legacy (Pluto Press, forthcoming 2013)

The Pinochet Case: Origins, Progress and Implications (edited book), London, ILAS, 2003, 266pp, ISBN 1900039524

The Pinochet Case, Institute of Latin American Studies Research Paper, No. 53, November 2000, 76pp ISBN 1900039354

Journal articles:

'Reappraising British socialist humanism' (in preparation)

‘Arguing affluence: New Left contributions to the socialist debate 1957-1963’ Twentieth Century British History ( 2011, doi: 10.1093/tcbh/hwr033)

"The Marxism of the British New Left", Journal of Political Ideologies (Vol. 11, No.3 (2006) pp.335-358)

“Externalized justice and democratization: lessons from the Pinochet case” Political Studies (Vol.54 No.2 June 2006

“Is Spain recovering its memory? Breaking the pacto del olvido” Human Rights Quarterly 27 (2005)

“The indictment of Pinochet: pursuing justice in Chile 1973-2003” Hispanic Research Journal, 5/3, October 2004

“Dictators and democrats in Latin America; but can the poor tell the difference? Radical Philosophy, 104, November 2000, pp2-6

Chapters in books:

‘The New Reasoner and the early New Left’ in David Howell, Dianne Kirby and Kevin Morgan (eds.) John Saville: commitment and history. Themes from the life and work of a socialist historian (Lawrence and Wishart, 2010) pp.

‘The Marxism of the British New Left’ in Zhang Liang (ed.) British New Left thinkers (Nanjing, Jiangsu Renmin Press, 2010), pp. 1-32.

‘The origins of the British New Left’ in ’ in M. Klimke and J. Scharloth (eds) 1968 in Europe: a history of protest and activism 1956-1977, (Palgrave, 2008) pp.45-56.

“Labourism and the New Left” – chapter in Fielding, S., Ludlam, S., and Callaghan (eds) Interpreting the Labour Party: Approaches to Labour Politics and History, Manchester, MUP, 2003, pp39-56

“The Politics of the Pinochet Case in the UK” in Davis, M., (ed) The Pinochet Case, pp125-144

“Law and politics in the Pinochet Case” in Davis, M., (ed) The Pinochet Case, pp1-21

Other:

Encyclopedia entry: 'The New Left' in Mark Bevir (ed) Encycolpedia of Political Theory (Sage, 2009)

Selected Conference Papers:

‘Re-appraising British socialist humanism’ PSA Annual Conference, Manchester, April 2009.

‘British socialist humanism: a reappraisal’ Manchester Workshops in Political Theory, September 2008.

‘Community, culture and state in the socialism of the New Left’. PSA Labour Movements conference ‘Labour, society and the state in post-war Britain’, University College Oxford, 12 June 2008.

‘Marxism and the British New Left’, Manchester Workshops in Political Theory, September 2005.

Undergraduate teaching:

• POL206 Modern Political Thought (Level 5)
• POL368 Socialist Political Thought (Level 6)

Postgraduate teaching:

• Issues in Democratisation (Level 7)