Richard Howells

Biography

Richard Howells is Professor of Cultural Sociology. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard University with an AB in Visual Studies and then returned to his native England to take his MPhil and PhD in Social and Political Sciences at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In 2004 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Centre for the Arts in Society, Carnegie Mellon University, USA. He is a former head of CMCI, which he joined in 2006.  In 2015 he was a Visiting Scholar at St John’s College, University of Oxford, and in 2017 was a Visiting Fellow at Exeter College, University of Oxford, and Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations, also at the University of Oxford.   

Research Interest

"Richard Howells is a cultural sociologist who specialises in visual and popular culture. His work combines theory and practice to explore case studies as seemingly diverse as the myth of the Titanic, the work of the Bloomsbury Group, and the humour of Ali G. He is also a member of the Center for the Arts in Society, based in the USA, with whom he has worked and published on the analysis of controversies in the arts. Professor Howells’ most recent book is a monograph: A Critical Theory of Creativity: Utopia, Aesthetics, Atheism and Design (2015; paperback edition 2017). His work is united by asking the big questions about culture: What is it? Why do we have it? And what does it tell us about ourselves? Consequently, he was commissioned to write a policy essay for the Arts and Humanities Research Council, arguing for the value of arts and humanities research to society. This has now been published in an edited volume of work by “a group of distinguished humanities researchers, all working in Britain, but publishing research of international importance” and who advocate the public value rather than the economic impact of the arts and humanities. He is currently working on a chapter on “Visual Culture” commissioned for inclusion in A Companion to the Theories and Methods of Art History, edited by Geraldine A. Johnson (Oxford University), forthcoming, 2019, and a third edition of his Visual Culture (2003, 2012, and forthcoming 2018). Professor Howells welcomes qualified applications for PhD topics related to any of his research interests."