Dr Katie Beswick

Katie's academic writing primarily concerns issues of class relations and class politics across a range of popular culture, art and performance practices. She has published widely in books, journals, scholarly editions and online. Her work frequently involves collaborations with artists, and she is often invited to document artists' work, and to reflect on their practices by using ethnographic methods to engage with making-processes.

Her 2019 monograph, 'Social Housing in Performance: The English Council Estate on and Off Stage' (Methuen), explored the ways council estates appear in theatre, performance, art, film and television examples.

With Conrad Murray she is the author of 'Making Hip Hop Theatre: Beatbox and Elements' (Methuen 2022), a practical guide to using hip hop in theatre, which understands hip hop as always embedded in class politics.

Her latest book, 'Slags on Stage', is due for publication with Routledge in 2024. This project traces the etymology of the word 'slag' and its uses to denote a damaged female sexual reputation in twentieth and twenty first century culture. It explores how women artists (such as Tracy Emin, Michaela Coel and Cash Carraway) have used the idea of 'slaggyness' in their work, and includes a collection of poems that play with notions of what it feels like to be called 'slag'.

Katie Beswick is assistant editor for the Intellect Journal of Class and Culture, and is a frequent contributor to the music and culture magazine Loud and Quiet.