Professor Oliver Bennett

About

Professor Oliver Bennett established Warwick's Centre for Cultural Policy Studies in 1999, having previously set up the MA in European Cultural Policy and Management in 1993. He directed both the Centre and the MA course until 2008. He has published widely on cultural policy, intellectual history and cultural politics. He is the founding editor of the International Journal of Cultural Policy and a founder member of the Scientific Committee of the International Conference on Cultural Policy Research (ICCPR).

He retired from his full-time position at Warwick in 2016. He continues to edit the International Journal of Cultural Policy and is also pursuing a second career as a documentary photographer (www.oliverbennettphotography.com). He sees this work as cultural analysis by other means.

Research interests

Professor Bennett's most recent research focused on the institutional promotion of hope, conceived as a form of cultural policy [click here for further details]. He has had a long-standing interest in questions of pessimism/optimism and has published two books on the subject: Cultural Pessimism: Narratives of Decline in the Postmodern World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001) and Cultures of Optimism: The Institutional Promotion of Hope (Palgrave Macmillan 2015). The second of these books reflected his commitment to pushing the boundaries of cultural policy studies, a commitment that continues in his editorship of the International Journal of Cultural Policy. He has has also investigated the role of religious institutions as agents of cultural policy, publishing a series of articles on the topic and co-editing, with Professor Jeremy Ahearne, a special issue of the Journal on religion and cultural policy. 

Representative publications

• Bennett, O. Cultures of Optimism: The Institutional Promotion of Hope (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)
• Bennett, O. ‘The Manufacture of Hope: Religion, Eschatology and the Culture of Optimism’, in Jeremy Ahearne and Oliver Bennett (eds), International Journal of Cultural Policy: Special Issue on Religion and Cultural Policy, 17.2 (2011), 115-130
• Bennett, O. ‘Cultures of Optimism’, Cultural Sociology, 5.2 (2011), 301-320
• Bennett, O. ‘Strategic Canonization: Sanctity, Popular Culture and the Catholic Church’, in David Looseley (ed), Policy and the Popular (London: Routledge, 2011), pp.78-95 [also translated into Spanish and published as "La canonización estratégica: Santidad, cultura popular y la Iglesia Católica", Denken Pensée Thought Mysl, Criterios, 24, April 2012]
• Bennett, O. 'On Religion and Cultural Policy: Notes on the Roman Catholic Church', International Journal of Cultural Policy: Special Issue on 'Implicit Cultural Policies', 15.2 (2009), 56-170 [also translated into Spanish and published as 'Sobre religión y política cultural: Notas sobre la Iglesia Católica Romana', Criterios, 37 (2012), 97-124]
• Belfiore, E. & Bennett O. The Social Impact of the Arts: An Intellectual History, (Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2008), 240pp [2nd edition, in paperback, published 2010]
• Bennett, O. ‘Intellectuals, Romantics and Cultural Policy', in Jeremy Ahearne and Oliver Bennett (eds), Intellectuals and Cultural Policy (London: Routledge, 2007), pp.3-19
• Bennett, O. ‘Beyond Machinery: The Cultural Policies of Matthew Arnold’, History of Political Economy, Vol 37, No 3 (2005), 455-482
• Bennett, O. Cultural Pessimism: Narratives of Decline in the Postmodern World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001), 224pp [also translated into Italian and published as Pessimismo Culturale by Il Mulino in 2003]
• Bennett, O. ‘Cultural Policy, Cultural Pessimism and Postmodernity’, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 4.1 (1997), 67-84 [also translated into Finnish and published as ‘Kultturpolitikka, kulttuuripessimismi ja postmoderniteetti’, in Anita Kangas & Juha Virkki, eds, Kulttuuripolitiikan uudet vaateet (Jyväskylä: SoPhi Jyväskylän ylipisto, 1999)]
• Bennett, O. ‘Cultural Policy and the Crisis of Legitimacy: Entrepreneurial Answers in the United Kingdom’, Kultur I Norden: Forskning & Praktik, 4 (1996), 15-29
• Bennett, O. ‘Cultural Policy and Management in Europe’, Tidskrift för Kultur Studier, 1 (1995), 108-120
• Bennett, O. 'Cultural Policy in the United Kingdom: Collapsing Rationales and the End of a Tradition', European Journal of Cultural Policy, 1.2 (1995), 15-32
• Bennett, O. 'British Cultural Policies: 1979 - 1990’ Boekmancahier, 9 (1991), 293-301 [Also translated into Finnish and published as 'Ison-Britannian Kultturpolitikka 1979 - 1990', Arsis, 4 (1992), 36-42]

Exhibitions

• People on a Platform, Photographs taken at Bristol Temple Meads Station, Jan - Dec 2024 (Exhibition of prints at Sandwi, Bristol, May - Dec 2025 and digital exhibition), ongoing.
• Greetings from Gordano, Photographs taken at the Gordano M5 Motorway Service Station, March 2025 - February 2026, digital exhibition, forthcoming

Qualifications

• B.A. (Hons) York
• D.Litt (Warwick)