BSc Sociology (Sheffield), PhD (Sheffield)
Office: 2G7, 12 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UQ, UK
Tel: +44 (0)117 928 7506
Email: ruth.levitas@bristol.ac.uk
Ruth Levitas has been Professor of Sociology at Bristol since 2001, and a member of the Department of Sociology at Bristol since 1979.
She is predominantly known for her work on utopianism and on social exclusion. Her research interests in the first field cover the history of oppositional and utopian thought, the relationship between utopia and social theory, utopia as a method in the social sciences, utopia and music, and utopia, history, memory and place. She is currently working on a book on The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society: Utopia as Method, elaborating themes in her 2005 Inaugural Lecture ‘The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society: or why sociologists and others should take Utopia seriously’ (Word format, 77kb). Work on utopia has been translated into Spanish and Norwegian.
She has also written widely on contemporary political ideologies and discourses, as well as on New Labour, poverty, inequality and social inclusion and exclusion. Her recent work on social exclusion in collaboration with colleagues in the School for Policy Studies and elsewhere has focused on conceptualisation and measurement. It includes research funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Social Exclusion Unit and The Social Exclusion Task Force. The JRF funded the largest-ever dedicated poverty survey in the UK, and the only one to directly examine social exclusion, carried out in 1999. The former SEU funded work on the multi-dimensional measurement of social exclusion, generating the Bristol Social Exclusion Matrix, or B-SEM, now being used to commission Government-funded secondary analysis of existing data sets. Work on social exclusion has been translated into French, Spanish and Greek.
She is co-founder and immediate past Chair of the Utopian Studies Society – Europe. This is an interdisciplinary society that aims to co-ordinate and encourage the diverse work currently taking place on the subject of utopianism, and which holds an annual conference in Europe. The 2008 conference will be at the Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies, University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland. For more information about the netwoek and the conference, visit: www.utopianstudieseurope.org
She is also Chair of the William Morris Society, a charity founded in London in 1955. Its principal purpose is to raise awareness of life and work of William Morris and his associates. It has branches in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, and organises lectures, conferences, tours, museum visits, and social gatherings, as well as undertaking an increasing amount of educational work in schools. For more information, go to www.morrissociety.org
With Dr Lucy Sargisson (Nottingham) and Professor Davina Cooper (Kent), Ruth Levitas is currently co-organising an ESRC-funded seminar series on Utopian Practices and Practical Utopias: www.nottingham.ac.uk/politics/research/Project-Utopia.php.