Dr Zoe Bulaitis is a literary scholar and critical theorist with a background in cultural and higher education policy. Her research focuses on the articulation of cultural value in contemporary higher education and the creative sector, in particular; the economisation of cultural value; policy analysis and critique; histories of liberal and neoliberal education; humanities-oriented methodologies; and the public value of arts and humanities research. Her open access book, Value and the Humanities: The Neoliberal University and Our Victorian Inheritance, which explores all of these topics is available here.
Zoe is passionate about the interconnections between teaching and research, both within higher education and within a wider learning ecosystem. She holds a PhD from the University of Exeter where she taught literature and critical theory within the English Department from 2013-18. Before joining Birmingham as a Teaching Fellow, Zoe was a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton (2018-19).
Zoe is fascinated in understanding contemporary creative ecologies and the civic role of universities within city-regions. From 2019-2020, she undertook a postdoctoral role within the AHRC-funded Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC), based at the University of Manchester. In this role Zoe worked with the British Council, NESTA, and local policymakers to shape new ways of thinking about the role of the humanities in city-planning, local industrial strategies, and inclusive growth. Publications around this topic are forthcoming in 2021. At Birmingham, Zoe brings this hand-on policy experience to her teaching practice, as co-convenor of the Public English (2nd Year) module. This innovative module allows students to think about the place of English Literature outside academia, and particularly in relation to schools, cultural policymaking, community education and public engagement.