Dr Alexander Beaumont

Teaching

My teaching on the undergraduate degree in English Literature focuses on twentieth and twenty-first-century literature and theory. I am responsible for the political philosophy strand of the undergraduate degree in Politics, which encompasses the study of modern political ideologies and the broader history of political thought. I also coordinate and teach across York St John's MA in Contemporary Literature, and contribute to our MA programmes in International Politics and Security, and Environment, Society and Justice.

Courses I teach on:

• BA English Literature; BA Creative Writing and English Literature; BA English Literature and Film Studies; BA English Literature and History; BA Media and English Literature; BA English Literature and Religion; BA Politics; BA Politics and International Relations; BA Politics and History; BA Politics; Philosophy and Economics; MA Contemporary Literature; MA Publishing and Contemporary Literature; MA International Politics and Security; MA Environment, Society and Justice.
  

Canonicity; Introduction to Literary Studies; Literary Theory; Cultures of the Now; Research Now; Gender and Sexualities; Political Philosophy: Themes and Thinkers; Political Ideologies; Political Analysis; Global Justice; Theorising the Contemporary; Historicising the Contemporary; World, Globe, Literature; Speculative Bodies; Emerging Issues in International Relations; Environment, Society and Justice; Environmental Humanities; Political Ecology.

Research

My research is principally organised around the intersection of politics and spatiality in British cultural production of the period 1945 to the present. I have particular interests in literary and geographical theories of space, democratic political theory and the post-Marxist tradition of critical theory.

My monograph Contemporary British Fiction and the Cultural Politics of Disenfranchisement (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) examines representations of urban space across a range of fiction published in the wake of Thatcherism in order to evaluate the political legacy of British cultural studies in the field of literary production. I co-edited the first collection of critical work on the British writer Sarah Hall (Gylphi, 2023) and have co-edited and published material in special issues of Literary Geographies, C21 Literature and the Open Library of Humanities.

My work has appeared in Contemporary Literature and the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, as well as edited collections on the cultural politics of Thatcherism, the novelist Maggie Gee, the politics of integrity, the inter-discipline of literary geography and as part of Cambridge UP’s ‘British Literature in Transition’ series. I am currently working on two book projects: the first is an edited collection with University of Wales Press on literary geographies of isolation during and after the COVID-19 pandemic; the second is a study of twentieth- and twenty-first-century representations of the architect in British fiction.

I welcome PhD proposals in any area of postwar and contemporary culture, critical theory, twentieth- and twenty-first-century political theory and literary geography. I am currently supervising the following PhD projects:

• Kristine Brence, ‘East Coast of the Baltic Sea: Politics, Identity and Musicology in Rock Music. Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the 1990s to 2010s’
• Clara Juncker, ‘Patterns in Contemporary Bestsellers’
• Joseph Owen Wright, ‘Plastic and Plasticity in the Contemporary Novel: Persons, Landscapes and Objects in the Apocalypse’

Publications

Books

Beaumont, A., (ed.) (forthcoming 2026) Literary Geography in Later Covid. University of Wales Press.

Beaumont, A. and D’hoker, E. (eds.) (2022) Sarah Hall: Critical Essays. Canterbury: Gylphi.

Beaumont, A. (2015) Contemporary British Fiction and the Cultural Politics of Disenfranchisement. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Journal issues (as editor)

Beaumont, A. and Hones, S. (eds.) (forthcoming 2024) ‘Conversations.’ Literary Geographies 10(2).

Beaumont, A., Hones, S., Ridanpää, J. and Saunders, A. (2020) ‘Literary Geographies in Isolation.’ Literary Geographies 6(2).

Beaumont, A. and Kelly, A. (eds.) (2018) ‘Freedom After Neoliberalism.’ Open Library of Humanities 4(2).

Beaumont, A. and Magennis, C. (eds.) (2017) ‘The Melancholy Islands.’ C21 Literature 5(1).

Beaumont, A. and Martin, D. (eds.) (2016) ‘Ballard’s Island: Histories, Modernities and Materialities.’ Literary Geographies 2(1).

Chapters and Articles

Beaumont, A. (2024) ‘Contemporary Literary Geographies.’ In: Alexander, N. and Cooper, D. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Literary Geography. London: Routledge, pp.218-227.

Beaumont, A. (2022) ‘Sarah Hall’s Material Imagination.’ In: Beaumont, A. and D’hoker, E. (eds.) Sarah Hall: Critical Essays. Canterbury: Gylphi, pp.195-220.

Beaumont, A. and D’Hoker, E. (2022) ‘Introduction.’ In: Beaumont, A. and D’hoker, E. (eds.) Sarah Hall: Critical Essays. Canterbury: Gylphi, pp.5-29.

Beaumont, A. (2020) ‘Hannah Arendt: Integrity and World.’ In: Carpenter, A. and Wiseman, R. (eds.) Portraits of Integrity. London: Bloomsbury.

Beaumont, A. (2018) ‘Cosmopolitanism without a World? David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.’ Open Library of Humanities 4(2): 21, pp.1-39.

Beaumont, A. (2018) ‘Dystopia and Euphoria: Time-Space Compression and the City.’ In: Pollard, E. and Schoene, B. (eds.) Accelerated Times: British Literature in Transition, Volume 5: 1980-2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 273-288.

Beaumont, A. and Kelly, A. (2018) ‘Freedom After Neoliberalism.’ Open Library of Humanities 4(2): 25, pp.1-26.

Beaumont, A. and Magennis, C. (2017) ‘Introduction: The Melancholy Islands’. C21 Literature 5(1), pp.1-4.

Beaumont, A. (2016) ‘Ballard’s Island(s): White Heat, National Decline and Technology After Technicity Between “The Terminal Beach” and Concrete Island.’ Literary Geographies 2(1), pp.96-113.

Beaumont, A. and Martin, D. (2016) ‘Introduction: Ballard’s Island’. Literary Geographies 2(1), pp.16-30.

Beaumont, A. (2015) ‘Original Modern or a New Kind of Ordinary?’ Alluvium 4(3), n.p.

Beaumont, A. (2015) ‘Reproductive Politics and the Public Sphere: Natalism, Natality and Apocalypse.’ In: Dillon, S. and Edwards, C. (eds) Maggie Gee: Critical Essays. Canterbury: Gylphi, pp.51-77.

Beaumont, A. (2014) ‘Exile and Freedom in Jeanette Winterson's The Passion: Venice, the British Inner Cities and the Cultural Politics of Disenfranchisement.’ Contemporary Literature 55(2), pp.270-303.

Beaumont, A. (2012) ‘From Subculture to Urban Pastoral: Mapping the City, Mapping the Left.’ British Politics Review: Journal of the British Politics Society, 7(4), pp. 12-13.

Beaumont, A. (2010) ‘“New Times” Television? Channel 4 and My Beautiful Laundrette.’ In: Ho, E. and Hadley, L. (eds.) Thatcher and After: Margaret Thatcher and Her Afterlife in Contemporary Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.53-74.

Reviews

Beaumont, A. (2019) Review of J.G. Ballard: Landscapes of Tomorrow, by Brown, R., C. and Stainforth, E. (eds.). Literary Geographies.

Beaumont, A. (2016)‘Literary Studies After the Spatial Turn’. Journal of Urban Cultural Studies 3(3), pp.395-405. 

Conferences

Keynotes

Beaumont, A. (2016) ‘Cosmopolitanism Without a World? Ethics versus the Political in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas.’ Keynote address presented to the Bath Spa Early Stage Researcher Conference, Bath Spa University, 16 May.

Beaumont, A. (2015) ‘English Literature and Britain’s Norths / British Literature and England’s North.’ Keynote address presented to the Melancholy Empire: British and Irish Literature in the 21^st Century conference, University of Salford, 16 April.

Invited talks

Beaumont, A. (2022) ‘London Literary Society Reading Group: China Miéville’s The City and the City.’ Address at The Street and the City: Moments Conference, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, 7-9 September 2022.

Beaumont, A. (2018) ‘Austerity and Suffering Agency in Blow Your House Down and On Black Sisters’ Street.’ Address at Humanities Approaches to Austerity in Europe and the Global South Conference, Clark University / Training Center and Séminaires De La Chambre Employees, Luxemburg, 15-18 June.

Beaumont, A. (2017) ‘Fiction, Politics and Post-Truth.’ Address at Fiction and Fake News Meets Management Conference, University of Cambridge, 18 October.

Beaumont, A. (2014) ‘Arendt, Truth and Politics.’ Address at Theoria research seminar, University of St Andrews, 12 March.

Beaumont, A. (2013) ‘Epidemics of the Will” and the Uses of Freedom.’ evekosofskysedgwick.net [Internet]

Beaumont, A. (2011) ‘Jeanette Winterson’s Venice and the Cultural Politics of Disenfranchisement.’ Address at the Centre for Modern Studies research seminar, University of York, 20 October.

Public engagements

Beaumont, A. (2016) Four Thought [radio] BBC Radio 4. 27 January.

Beaumont, A. (2013) ‘Epidemics of the Will” and the Uses of Freedom.’ evekosofskysedgwick.net [Internet]

Beaumont, A. (2012) ‘The BBC and the North.’ opendemocracy [Internet]

Beaumont, A. (2012) ‘The Olympic Dream.’ Manchester Salon [Internet]

Professional activities

I act as an external examiner at King's College London and co-edit the open-access journal Literary Geographies.

Public engagement

Beaumont, A. (2016) Four Thought [radio] BBC Radio 4. 27 January.

Beaumont, A. (2013) ‘Epidemics of the Will” and the Uses of Freedom.’ evekosofskysedgwick.net [Internet]

Beaumont, A. (2012) ‘The BBC and the North.’ opendemocracy [Internet]

Beaumont, A. (2012) ‘The Olympic Dream.’ Manchester Salon [Internet]