Centre for Cultural Policy Studies

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Professor Oliver Bennett

Professor Oliver Bennett established Warwick's Centre for Cultural Policy Studies in 1999, having previously established the M.A. in European Cultural Policy and Management in 1993. He directed both the Centre and the MA course until 2008. He has published widely on cultural policy, intellectual history and cultural politics. He is the founding editor of the International Journal of Cultural Policy and a founder member of the Scientific Committee of the International Conference on Cultural Policy Research (ICCPR).

A common thread in much of his research has been the use of historical or theoretical perspectives to illuminate contemporary policy assumptions. For example, in recent years he has been engaged in a collective, international enquiry on the role of ‘intellectuals’ in cultural policy; and, with Dr Eleonora Belfiore, in a three-year project aimed at developing new approaches to understanding the social impact of the arts. He is currently investigating the role of religious institutions as agents of contemporary cultural policy. He also retains a long-standing interest in questions of pessimism/optimism and is working on a sequel to his book, Cultural Pessimism: Narratives of Decline in the Postmodern World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001). Entitled Optimism:The Manufacture of Hope, this will be published by Reaktion Books in 2013.

Representative publications

Bennett, O. 'On Religion and Cultural Policy: Notes on the Roman Catholic Church', International Journal of Cultural Policy: Special Issue on 'Implict Cultural Policies', 15.2 (2009), 56-170
Belfiore, E. & Bennett O. The Social Impact of the Arts: An Intellectual History, (Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2008), 240pp [2nd edition, in paperback, published 2010]
Belfiore, E. & Bennett, O. ‘Rethinking the Social Impact of the Arts’, International Journal of Cultural Policy: Vienna Conference Issue, 13.2 (2007)
Bennett, O. ‘Intellectuals, Romantics and Cultural Policy', in Jeremy Ahearne and Oliver Bennett (eds), Intellectuals and Cultural Policy (London: Routledge, 2007), pp.3-19
Bennett, O. ‘Beyond Machinery: The Cultural Policies of Matthew Arnold’, History of Political Economy, Vol 37, No 3 (2005), 455-482
Bennett, O. Cultural Pessimism: Narratives of Decline in the Postmodern World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001), 224pp [also translated into Italian and published as Pessimismo Culturale by Il Mulino in 2003]
Bennett, O. ‘Cultural Policy, Cultural Pessimism and Postmodernity’, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 4.1 (1997), 67-84 [also translated into Finnish and published as ‘Kultturpolitikka, kulttuuripessimismi ja postmoderniteetti’, in Anita Kangas & Juha Virkki, eds, Kulttuuripolitiikan uudet vaateet (Jyväskylä: SoPhi Jyväskylän ylipisto, 1999)]
Bennett, O. ‘Cultural Policy and the Crisis of Legitimacy: Entrepreneurial Answers in the United Kingdom’, Kultur I Norden: Forskning & Praktik, 4 (1996), 15-29
Bennett, O. ‘Cultural Policy and Management in Europe’, Tidskrift för Kultur Studier, 1 (1995), 108-120
Bennett, O. 'Cultural Policy in the United Kingdom: Collapsing Rationales and the End of a Tradition', European Journal of Cultural Policy, 1.2 (1995), 15-32
Bennett, O. 'British Cultural Policies: 1979 - 1990’ Boekmancahier, 9 (1991), 293-301 [Also translated into Finnish and published as 'Ison-Britannian Kultturpolitikka 1979 - 1990', Arsis, 4 (1992), 36-42]