Jim joined the then Department of Social Sciences in 1998 and played a major role in building the Department’s now internationally recognised reputation as a centre of excellence in media and cultural analysis.
The relations between culture and society are both an interdisciplinary field of study, drawing on insights from across the social sciences and humanities, and a focus of political contention and policy. Jim’s work combined a magisterial command of diverse intellectual resources with insights gained from working in two of Britain’s major cultural institutions, as a script editor in the Plays division of the BBC Drama Department and as a Research Officer for the Arts Council. He was a talented artist, producing sketches and sometimes paintings of Departmental members marked by his typical humour and generosity.
His teaching and research were informed by unfailing clarity, passion, a fierce scepticism of received wisdoms and intellectual fashions and an ability to select case studies that threw new light on familiar problems.
In a series of landmark books, Jim charted the impact of free market economics on cultural life and institutions and defended the continuing need for a non-commercialised public domain. ‘Cultural Populism’ (1992) an early warning of the corrosive rise of populism was followed by ‘Cool Capitalism’ (2009) detailing the incorporation of dissent into the commercial mainstream. Jim countered this enclosure with powerful arguments for preserving and extending the cultural public sphere, developed in his inaugural lecture and his book ‘Culture and the Public Sphere’ (1996). He went on to explore the practical implications in ‘Rethinking Cultural Policy’ (2004).
More recently Jim returned to the work of Raymond Williams, one of the seminal pioneers of cultural analysis in Britain, producing a major exposition of Williams’ work ‘Raymond Williams: Cultural Analyst’ (2019).
One of Raymond Williams’ last books is entitled ‘What I Came to Say’. Jim spoke and wrote with erudition, humour, passion and an unwavering commitment to cultural expression that reflected the full diversity of complex societies and offered an indispensable public resource for self-discovery and the cultivation of empathy. His writings achieved global reach with translations in Chinese, Farsi, Korean and Japanese along with European languages. His work continues to speak to contemporary conditions offering a rich store of ideas, arguments, and evidence with which to confront the current crises of culture and argue for alternatives. His voice will be sorely missed by colleagues and former students and his many friends and admirers around the world.
Our thoughts are with Jim’s family at this sad time.
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