Robert Douglas Dickinson

Email: robert.d.dickinson@stu.mmu.ac.uk
Twitter: @baskeynell

Previous Education

1994-97 Manchester Metropolitan University, M Phil Humanities (thesis later published as Imprinting The Sticks: The Alternative Press Outside London, Arena Books, 1997)
1974-77 University of East Anglia, Norwich. Norfolk: BA English & American Studies
1973-74 Mid Cheshire School of Art & Design, Northwich: Foundation Course in Art & Design
1968-73 Sandbach School, Cheshire: 3 A Levels 8 O Levels
1966-68 Godalming Grammar School Surrey

Thesis Title

Network Entelechy

Supervisors

Amanda Ravetz (M.M.U.) and Abigail Gilmore (University of Manchester).

Research Summary

An examination of the relationship between critical writing and critically-engaged contemporary art in the North West of England during the era of Northern Powerhouse and urban regeneration. I am interested in texts and artworks, and their linkage to the existence of a creative economy in cities like Manchester and Liverpool, and the interplay between traditional “big” infrastructure and local, more personal infratructures, at a time when austerity economics has had a powerful impact on arts ecologies.

Research Interests

Contemporary art; critical writing; Actor Network Theory (A.N.T.); New Materialisms