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School of English and Drama

Kester Richardson-Dawes

Kester

Walter Benjamin's Radio Broadcasts

Email: k.j.richardson-dawes@qmul.ac.uk
Website: https://qmul.academia.edu/KesterRichardson

Profile

I am originally from Exeter. I did my BA and MA in English at QMUL, where I am currently writing up my PhD on Walter Benjamin’s radio broadcasts. I have taught at QMUL and Arcadia University since 2016.

Research Interests: Walter Benjamin; Critical theory; Sound cultures; Modernism. Walter Benjamin’s theory of art, technology and reproduction has gone viral, yet scholars have repressed his own series of radio broadcasts.

In my PhD thesis, I place Benjamin’s radio praxis at the centre of his oeuvre, framing it as the key to his unorthodox Marxism. Find out more about Radio Benjamin here.

My interest in sound cultures has led to a series of QMUL Strategic Research Initiative funded events, co-organised with Dr. Rhiannon Moss (QMUL), Dr. Ella Finer (QMUL) and Dr. Claire Hurley (Kent). I am currently looking towards publishing my first monograph based on my PhD thesis.

Follow me on Twitter @kesric1

Teaching

Guest Lecturer at QMUL and Arcadia University on Marx, Benjamin, Adorno and First Year transition to university.
I have lead seminars for the following modules:
  • ESH6044 - Livelihoods in English
  • ESH125 English in Practice
  • ESH243 Architexts
  • ESH102 Reading, Theory and Interpretation: Approaches to the Study of English Literature
  • ESH110 Literatures in Time: Texts and Contexts from the Eighth to the Sixteenth Century
  • ESH213 Modernism
  • ESH7002 Benjamin and Adorno
  • ESH382 Reading Childhood/Writing Children; Arcadia History course – ‘British Radio’

Research

Supervision

Prof. Paul Hamilton and Dr. Sam Halliday
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