Ken Hirschkop teaches in the English Department at the
University of Waterloo,
Ontario, Canada.
Biography
Hirschkop grew up in
Boston, Massachusetts, and attended local schools before heading to do his first degree at
Swarthmore. His original academic speciality was
music theory
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...
and
history. He then became an apprentice making
harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
s. In 1981 he moved to the UK to take up a place at the
University of London to do an MA. His interest in Bakhtin then took him to
Oxford where he began to do his doctoral research on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, focusing on his theory of language under the supervision of
Terry Eagleton. His book ''Mikhail Bakhtin: An Aesthetic for Democracy'' was largely based on his Phd thesis and was published by
Oxford University Press in 1999. During his Oxford years, Hirschkop was deeply involved in the activities of
Oxford English Limited
Oxford English Limited (OEL) was a socialist-feminist group of undergraduate and postgraduate students campaigning for progressive reforms in the Oxford University English Faculty between 1982 and 1992. OEL's demands included the abolition of co ...
and its journal
News from Nowhere: Journal of the Oxford English Faculty Opposition.
He worked at the
University of Southampton from 1987 until 1995 teaching
cultural criticism in the English department. In 1995 he moved to the
University of Manchester where he ran and taught an MA programme in Cultural Criticism until 2005. In the summer of 2005 he moved to the University of Waterloo where he is currently the Graduate Chair of English.
His main publications are ''Benjamin’s Arcades Project: an unguided tour'' (co-authored with Peter Buse, Scott McCracken and Bertrand Taithe), ''Culture, Class and Education (1945-1970)'' in The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature, ''Mikhail Bakhtin: An Aesthetic for Democracy'' in Oxford University Press of 1999, ''Bakhtin and Cultural Theory'', co-edited with David Shepherd and 'Linguistic Turns: Writing on Language & Social Theory', April 2019, Oxford University Press
External links
Ken Hirschkop homepage at University of Waterloo.
* Ken Hirschkop
On Being Difficult ''Electronic Book Review'', 2007.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hirschkop, Ken
Living people
Academic staff of the University of Waterloo
Year of birth missing (living people)
Academics of the University of Southampton
Academics of the University of Manchester
American expatriate academics