Professor Hywel Dix
- Professor in English
- Weymouth House W322, Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, Poole, BH12 5BB
Biography
I am interested in the relationship between culture and social and political change, especially in relation to political devolution in the 4 nations of the UK. I explore these things in detail in my monographs After Raymond Williams: Cultural Materialism and the Break-Up of Britain (2nd edition, University of Wales Press, 2013) and Postmodern Fiction and the Break-up of Britain (Continuum, 2010) as well as numerous other articles, book chapters and conference presentations. I have recently completed a comparative study of Welsh, Scottish, English and Irish literature in the aftermath of Brexit, entitled 'Compatriots or Competitors?'
More recently, I have developed a major research interest in Autofiction. My 2018 edited collection Autofiction in English broke new ground in the study of autofiction in the Anglophone world and built on an earlier extended research project about literary careers. Drawing on the theories, concepts and critical approaches of Career Construction Theory has enabled me to develop a new understanding of the material properties of authorial careers, which are written up in my monograph The Late-Career Novelist (2017)... I am currently exploring the relationship between life writing, autofiction and memory cultures in a number of different projects and published the short book Autofiction and Cultural Memory in 2023.
I am interested in supervising research in most areas of modern and contemporary British literature, especially projects that explore the relationship between literature and the changing make-up of the United Kingdom, as well as in life writing and autofiction.
moreResearch
Books
- Autofiction and Cultural Memory. 2023.
- Compatriots or Competitors: Welsh, Scottish, English and Northern Irish Writing and Brexit in Comparative Contexts. 2022.
- The Late-Career Novelist: Career Construction Theory, Authors and Autofiction. 2017.
- After Raymond Williams: Cultural Materialism and the Break-Up of Britain. Second ed, 2013.
- Postmodern Fiction and the Break-Up of Britain. 2010.
Edited Books
- Career Construction Theory and Life Writing: Narrative and Autobiographical Thinking across the Professions. 2020.
- Autofiction in English. 2018.
- Multicultural Narratives: Traces and Perspectives (co-ed). 2018.
Edited Special Issue of Journal
- Career Construction Theory and Life Writing. Special issue of Life Writing, 17.1 March 2020.
Chapters in Books
- ‘Autofiction in Words and Images: The Visual-Verbal Dialectic’ in The Routledge Companion to Literary Media, ed. Astrid Ensslin, Julia Round and Bronwen Thomas. 2023.
- ‘Autofiction’ in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature (online). 2022.
- ‘Autofiction, Post-conflict Narratives and New Memory Cultures’ in The Autofictional: Approaches, Affordances, Forms ed. Alexandra Effe and Hannie Lawlor. 2021.
- ‘Welsh European’ and ‘Sowing the Seeds of Change: Raymond Williams Since 2000’ in Raymond Williams: From Wales to the World ed. Stephen Woodhams. 2021.
- ‘From vocational calling to career construction: Late-career authors and critical self-reflection’ in Researching and Writing on Contemporary Art and Artists: Challenges, Practices and Complexities, ed... Christopher Wiley and Ian Pace. 2020.
- ‘Conclusion: New Nodes of Intersection’ in Mapping Cultural Identities and Intersections: Imagological Readings ed. Onorina Botezat and Mustafa Kirca. 2019.
- ‘From Folk Artists to Integrated Professionals: The portrayal of tattoos in The Electric Michelangelo and Voodoo Pilchard’ in Tattoos in Crime and Detective Narratives: Making and Remaking ed. Kate Watson and Katharine Cox. 2019.
- ‘From Tonka Beans to Magic Seeds: VS Naipaul’s Late Career Fiction of Self-Retrospect’ in Seepersad and Sons: Naipaulian Synergies ed. V.J. Maharaj. 2019.
- ‘Writing the Nations: Welsh, Northern Irish, and Scottish Literature’ in The History of British Women’s Writing, Vol. 10, 1970 – Present ed. Emma Parker and Mary Eagleton. 2015.
- ‘The Retrospective Stage: Late Career Fiction and Authorial Self-renewal’ in Literary Careers in the Modern Era ed. Nicola Evans and Guy Davidson. 2015.
- ‘Cymbeline and the Display of Empire’ in Shakespeare and Tyranny: Regimes of Reading in Europe and Beyond ed. Keith Gregor. 2014.
- ‘Devolution and Cultural Catch-Up: Decoupling England and its Literature from English Literature’ in Literature of an Independent England: Revisions of England, Englishness and English Literature ed. Claire Westall and Michael Gardiner. 2013.
- ‘“To Speak in New Ways”: Class and Poetry in Wales since 1970’ in Slanderous Tongues: Essays on Welsh Poetry in English 1970- 2000 ed. Daniel Williams. 2010.
- ‘The Pedagogy of Cultural Materialism’ in About Raymond Williams ed. Monika Seidl and Larry Grossberg, 2009.
Articles in Refereed Journals
- ‘Constructions of Cosmopolitanism in the Making of Welsh Writing in English.’ International Journal of Welsh Writing in English 10.1 2023.
- ‘Unfulfilled Vocations in Contemporary American Fiction.’ Textual Practice 36 (1), 2022.
- ‘Autofiction, Colonial Massacres and the Politics of Memory.’ University of Bucharest Review. 22 (1), 2020.
- ‘From Writer’s Block to Extended Plot: Career Construction Theory and Lives in Writing.’ Life Writing 16, 2018.
- ‘Autofiction: The forgotten face of French theory.’ Word and Text, 7 (1), 2017.
- ‘On Balkanism and Orientalism: Undifferentiated Patterns of Perception in Literary and Critical Representations of Eastern Europe’. Textual Practice, Vol. 29 (5), 2015.
- ‘Transnational Imagery in the Poetry of Imtiaz Dharker’. Anglistik, 26(1), 2015.
moreFavourites
- Dix, H., 2023. Compatriots Or Competitors? Welsh, Scottish, English and Northern Irish Writing and Brexit in Comparative Contexts. University of Wales Press.
- Dix, H., 2022. Autofiction and Cultural Memory. Routledge.
- Autofiction in English. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Dix, H., 2013. After Raymond Williams. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
