Simon, Teaching

Dear Madam, Sir,

                                I am a writer, academic and communicator with a very wide experience of English culture.  I would draw your attention to the breadth of experience evidenced on my CV.  I left school at the high-point of youth unemployment in this country and my CV evidences the nature of this experience, working voluntarily for MIND, the Citizens Advice Bureau and Adult Literacy as a tutor, before entering the labour market through one of the then government’s Manpower services Commission scheme for the long-term unemployed.  It was to escape the cycle of unemployment and training schemes that I went to university.   

  The experience of the people with whom I grew up and with whom I still live, has never left me, and provides the most valuable counter pose to my educational experiences.  It is my life in South Yorkshire, for many years the poorest region in Western Europe, that has contextualised my insights into the English education system, and this has provided the basis for the insights in my academic writing.  Professor Richard Hoggart, author of the classic Uses of Literacy, the academic inspiration for the popular drama, Coronation Street, has described my doctoral work in the following way, “He has a remarkable mind -- and imagination.  At his best he is poetic in his empathy...Again leaving aside the matter of the Doctorate, my wish...is that he should reach a wider audience.”  And later in the same report he described my academic prose as ‘remarkable for its insight and poetic integrity’ and I believe it is these qualities that make me a very effective, interesting and powerful educator.

  My life-long interest in educational processes and in the personal mechanisms whereby systematic processes of mis-communication occur within educational settings, has fed into my professional life ever since I started my education at Rotherham College of Arts and Technology, firstly in the commitment to education shown in my preparedness to spend a year doing a PGCE for adult education before pursuing my higher degrees and research interests.  The book, Phenomenology of Working Class Experience (CUP 2000) was an attempt to elucidate the human conditions whereby many become alienated from the very capacities that are a prerequisite for success.  That work was nominated and short-listed for the Phillip Abrahms prize for the best new work of Sociology by a first-time author.  It is a work that has been called an “exemplary study” by Sociology and compared to Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier by the journal Space and Culture (Vol 6, No 2 2003) in a contribution called, “Mapping the remains of the Postindustrial Landscape”, which fairly describes the contribution I have already made to our understanding of large-scale economic change.  My interest in education and social justice is consolidated in my latest work, a two-volume study of English higher education and the processes that lead to the exclusion of so many from many sectors of the economy.  There has been so much statistical sociology that has demonstrated the deepening nature of inequalities, yet very little work of a qualitative nature even comes close to providing a systematic account of the processes whereby these inequalities are inter-personally realized.

  I was visiting fellow at Queen's Medical School in Nottingham in 2002-2003 which led to a publication in a British Medical Bulletin collection, Cultures of Health.  I have continued to pursue my interest in social suffering with work on suicide and drug use among the poor.  My recent work has concerned the issue of competence and division and its relation to the way divisions are experienced which affect mental health.  I teach a Master's Course at the Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and continue to collect data and produce analyses.

  As well as my interests in these issues, I have extensive experience of publishing and of the realm of English higher education.  I have written in my work about the social nature of language and about the depth of different class experiences of the whole of the personal realm.  Quite apart from the breadth and depth of my social experience, I also have an extensive knowledge of the technical literatures of contemporary Sociology and of twentieth century philosophy.  My work has been described as a concrete and original approach to the elucidation of human reality and Pierre Bourdieu wrote of my work in private correspondence, “Your analysis of the way in which your ‘respondents’ live their condition in their bodies, and incorporate their domination and resignation greatly interested me.  I also greatly liked your analysis of their relationship to language.”  Professor Jeffrey Alexander, said of my work, “Charlesworth has produced a profound study of the deindustrialised working classes in northern Britain.  It is at once a sociological community study, an anthropological ethnography, a sociolinguistic reconstruction of class language, an examination of the social body, a phenomenological reconstruction of economic class position and an immensely learned theoretical discourse about how we should understand the subjective and interior side of economic experience.  It succeeds on each of these levels…it is a powerful, brilliant and important academic effort.”

  As you will see from my CV, I have given many different talks, including the International Center for Health and Society, University College, London; the Psychology department at Sterling and I have also been the BBC Radio Three programme, Night Waves: Undercurrents. 

    Many thanks.

                          Yours,

                                      Simon Charlesworth

Education

1996                  PhD Social and Political Science

Cambridge University, England

                          Dissertation: “Changes in working class culture in Rotherham”

Supervisor: Professor Geoffrey Hawthorn

Second Supervisor: Professor Allan Macfarlane.

Internal Examiner: Professor Anthony Giddens.

External Examiner: Professor Paul Willis.

Attended Anthropology Department Research Methods training with Professor Allan McFarlane as well as Criminology Institute Research Methods Training, as well as Social and Political Sciences, ESRC Research Training and I was also able to attend Teacher training sessions in the Department of Education at Cambridge while supervising undergraduates in Social and Political Science. 

1992                  MPhil, Social and Political Theory.

                          Cambridge University, England.

Thesis:  Commentary on “The external world, including the human body, is not a given but an historical reality constantly mediated by human labour and interpreted through human culture.”

Co-Supervisors: Dr J.Thompson and Professor A.Giddens.

Examiners: Professor A.Giddens and Dr G.McCann.

Attended the post-graduate seminars in the Philosophy Department.

1991                  Postgraduate Certificate in Education.  For teachers in FE and HE.

Huddersfield University, England.

Dissertation “Anti-School Attitudes and the Pedagogic Relation.”

Co-Supervisors: Lew Owen and P.Sanderson.

This work was done with Dr Owen and Dr Sanderson and involved looking at the nature and genesis of anti-school attitudes and it has since been used by young teachers.  I also gave talks to the research seminar group at Huddersfield.

1990                  BA (Honours, First Class) Sociology

                          Warwick University, England.

1986                  Rotherham Technical College

Professional Experience

            2018.               Invited to give two lectures and a lecture series, University of Eichstätt.

2009.               Invited to give two lectures and a summer school, the University of Porto to give a series of lectures.

2005-2006.      Invited to Centre and Periphery Conference April 21.

2004-2005.      Invited to teach a course explaining my phenomenological ideas to third year undergraduates.  This programme is continuing.

2003-2004       President of Marketing, Zakat Cola Company Limited.  Helped set up Zakat Cola, a Muslim based alternative to American Colas which gives part of its profits to Charities.

2002-2004       Visiting Fellow, Department of Public Health Sciences, Nottingham, where I give lectures and seminars and am involved in supervising students who have interests in anthropological issues concerning health and embodiment.  I worked on a project concerning psycho-social risk factors that led to the publication with Richard Wilkinson.

2002-2003       Director of Senator Trading, Rotherham.

2003-2004       Yan Shan University, China.  Taught Social and Political Sciences.  Worked with Undergraduates and Postgraduates on their Social and Political Science programmes.  Supervised a number of Postgraduates and helped establish a Masters course in Political Science.

1. Research Fellow, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge.Duties involved undergraduate teaching and research.I gave a number of lectures on the courses, Social Structure of Modern Britain and Modern Social Theory: Social Theory since 1920 and also supervised undergraduate work with students from the department of Social And Political Science and from Clare Hall, as well as giving lectures in the Judge Institute of Management Studies that related to issues concerning unemployment, local economies and the emergence of illicit economies of gift and exchange.I also worked closely with a number of students from the institute supervising work that concerned philosophical issues arising in relation to theories of organization and management.I was also involved in giving an invited lecture series in the Department of Anthropology.Professor Allan Macfarlane invited me to give a series of reflections on the problems involved with carrying out anthropology at home.It was through my contacts with the department of Anthropology at Cambridge that I was invited by Alan Campbell to give a similar series at the University of Edinburgh in 1998.I also gave a series of four guest lectures at Queens College, Cambridge, where I was invited by Dr Ian Patterson to address an audience on the Phenomenological insight of D.H.Lawrence and to consider Lawrence’s foresight in light of my own work on the lives of working class people in pit communities now that the pits Lawrence so loathed are gone.In 2000 Professor Paul Willis invited me to give a talk on the nature of Ethnography at Wolverhampton University.I was visiting Research Fellow at Queens Medical School in Nottingham in 2003.

1. Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Socialese, Paris.

1996-1998                   Taught Philosophy and Sociology of Education, department of Education, Huddersfield University.

1. I supervised undergraduates and gave lectures on Bourdieu and Heidegger; as well as on Health inequalities and working class culture in relation to the two courses, the Social Structure of Modern Britain and Modern Social Theory: Social Theory since 1920 as well as supervising MPhil work with students from the department of Social and Political Science from Clare Hall.

1. Taught Undergraduate Sociology at Leeds University.

1. Supervised undergraduates, department of Social and Political Sciences, Cambridge University.

1990-1991.      Taught A Level Philosophy and Sociology, Rotherham College of Arts and Technology.

Honours and Awards

2003                Visiting Research Fellow Queens Medical School, Nottingham. 

2002                Nominated and short-listed for Phillip Abrahms Award, a British Sociological Association award for the best work by a first-time author

1993-1996       Economic and Social Research Council PhD Studentship (One of 30 nationally).

1. Economic and Social Research Council M.Phil. Studentship.

Invited Presentations.

Invited to the Glasgow Conference on Bourdieu’s Work, March 97.  Gave a paper “Bourdieu, Social Suffering and Working Class Life”.

Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Socialese, Paris.  Gave a paper to a research group at the College on Neoliberalism and emergent forms of social suffering.  August 1998.

Judge Institute of Management, Cambridge University.  Invited to give a talk about the nature of how economic phenomena are manifest at a local level to small businesses and entrepreneurs.  January 2000.

Invited to Warwick University, department of Sociology, February 2000, department of Sociology, to talk about Phenomenology.

International Center for Health and Society, University College, London, England. May 2002.  Stress and Health Among the Working Class: Phenomenological Reflections.

Department of Psychology, University of Sterling.  Invited to talk about community health.  March 2004.

BBC Radio Three, Night Waves: Undercurrents.  Discussion with Philip Dodd and Guests, exploring the history of the white working class in the UK and the changing attitudes towards them.

Guest lecturer at Nottingham Trent, on their BA Communication Studies programme (module: Current Debates in Communications); where I am teaching on phenomenology and the body.  April 2004.

January 12 2005.  Invited to participate in the Anthropology of Britain Workshop, the University of Surrey.

May 26 2007.  Invited to participate in 'Building Narrative': a one-day conference, The King's Manor, York, British Archaeological Report.

December 10, 2009.  Paths Towards a Reflexive Sociology: Ethnography Matters.  University of Porto, Portugal.

December 18, 2009.  Institutions, Sense, Representation.  Invited talk, University of Porto.

February 1, 2018.  Merleau-Ponty, Space, Visibility, Legibility, Value and Competence.  Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.

Winter Semester 2018.  Lecture series to Masters degree students.  "Critical Phenomenology as process-oriented sociology: From Husserl to Bourdieu".  Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.

Spring Semester 2019.  Lecture series to Masters degree students in Advanced Sociological Method.  "Phenomenological Insights and their Methodological implications".  Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.

Community Work

1. Worked at Doncaster Gate Hospital as an organizer of voluntary services through the network of Rotherham Hospitals.
2. I have consistently been involved in work with the Asian Community in Rotherham, mainly through Eastwood Mosque and through organizing sporting events.

1993-2003  Worked in Dalton in Rotherham with community services. 

2003.  I have been involved in representing the Pakistan Advice Centre, Firvale, Sheffield, in defending it from closure by attempting to attract further resources.  I have managed to attract sufficient funding to keep the place open but the major bid to the council is currently pending.

2004-2005.  I also help out with the Rotherham Ethnic Minority Alliance, a scheme funded by the Neighbourhood Renewal Project, we submitted a successful application to fund provision of an Integrated Language Service for the Rotherham Area. I was involved in setting up the organisational structure, recruitment of expertise and then the construction of the overall project, which was integrated in the research proposal, though, once successful, I had only a loose supervisory role, in terms of assessment and the writing of provisional progress reports.

2005.  Edexcel are using extracts of my book in one of their GCSE English course materials concerned with sociolinguistics.

2007.  Member of Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust.