English and Business Studies

For generations, English and Business Studies have tended to be located at opposite ends of the academic landscape: the first oriented towards the preservation of critical thought in the modern industrial world, the second self-tasked with equipping agents to operate in that world.

English found its traditional disciplinary allies in history and philosophy, psychology and sociology. English academics have tended to regard themselves as being on the side of a liberal agenda – the discipline best equipped to identify and deconstruct the alienated modern subject.

Business Studies grew from early twentieth-century managerialism, focusing on maths, economics, marketing and administration. Its critics have tended to regard the field as remorselessly materialist and indelibly mortgaged to a capitalist worldview.

In English and Business Studies: Ways of Seeing Dr Adam Gill and Professor Gerry Smyth address these stereotypical ‘ways of seeing’, exploring the parallels and correspondences between their respective disciplines.

Free entry. All welcome!

Dr Adam Gill
I am a Senior Lecturer in Executive Education at Liverpool Business School, where I teaches Level 7 leadership courses for clients, including the NHS, the Police, and corporate partners. My research explores the intersection of coaching and leadership authenticity, focusing on how leaders can bring their ‘true selves’ to their roles while resisting the pressure to ‘mask’ or conform to homogenous leadership norms. I obtained his PhD from the University of Liverpool in 2013, having conducted an ethnographic study of Latin American revolutionary councils, a methodological foundation that continues to inform my perspectives on power, agency and identity.

Professor Gerry Smyth
Most of my early research was in the fields of Irish Studies, postcolonial theory and Popular Music Studies. Latterly I’ve developed interests in modernism, environmentalism and maritime culture. I’ve recently completed two books: the first (for Bloomsbury) on the relations between environment and national identity in English genre fiction between 1890 and 1940; the second (for the British Library) retelling various stories from the Irish mythological cycles.