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King’s People

Biography

Ruth has worked at King’s since 2003 and was instrumental in establishing the MA in Cultural & Creative Industries. She is currently the Departmental Senior Tutor, and chairs the Faculty of Arts & Humanities Assessment Board, and the Social Sciences, Humanities and Law Research Ethics Subcommittee.

Ruth undertook her postgraduate studies at The London Consortium; completing an MRes in Cultural Studies & Humanities  and a doctoral thesis, 'Gentlemen and Players: The Victoria and Albert Museum - An Institutional Case Study of the Culture and Society Tradition'.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

  • Representations of Englishness
  • Critical interrogations of the discourse of ‘heritage’
  • Youth subcultures and popular music
  • Postcolonial identities and culture
  • Class, gender, and cultural representation and consumption

Ruth’s current research projects include Grime music as a political force, and a mode of expressing national identity and heritage in the post-colonial city; representations of country houses and the aristocracy in popular culture; and popular engagement with national media events (sport and royalty). Ruth welcomes applications for PhD topics related to any of her research interests.

For more details, please see her full research profile.

Teaching

Ruth convenes and teaches on the MA CCI core modules, in addition to leading optional modules based on her research. She also supervises MA dissertations and doctoral theses.

In addition, Ruth acts as the academic liaison between the department and Tate, and convenes the three modules that CMCI runs with the Museum.

Expertise and Public Engagement

Ruth has made a number of television and radio appearances, including ‘Cunk on Britain’ (BBC 2), ‘Peter York’s Hipster Handbook’ (BBC 4), BBC Radio 4 Today Programme & Thinking Allowed, Sky News & Channel 5 News, Korean television (KBS) and BBC Radio Wales. She has been a contributor to features articles in newspapers and magazines in the UK, Sweden, Brazil, and the UAE.

Ruth has given keynote addresses at conferences in Brazil and Colombia, and has been invited to give talks at symposia, festivals and theatres in the UK and France.

She is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College and has been an external examiner for University of Sheffield and University of Chester.

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