The papers in this workshop form the basis of a special issue of the International Journal of Cultural Policy due for publication in the Autumn of 2022. Colleagues are presenting their work-in-progress for feedback in advance of submission.

Featuring Carolina Bandinelli (University of Warwick) Ole Marius Hylland (Telemark Institute, Norway), Simone Wesner (Birkbeck, University of London), Bjarki Valtysson (University of Copenhagen), Xin Gu (Monash University), Alberto Cossu (University of Leicester), Michael Siciliano (Queen's University, Canada), Egle Rindzevicuite (Kingston University) and David Wright and Clive Gray (University of Warwick).

The Workshop will take place on Teams on the mornings of March 24 and 25th. Please e-mail d.wright.3@warwick.ac.uk if you would like to attend.

Thursday 24th February 2022 in the FAB 2.43 at 4pm-5:30pm

Art and cultural policy are in crisis. This crisis is prior to, and bigger than, Covid-19: we are living through an epochal moment not some conjunctural interference.

Whilst some might look to re-instate ‘business as usual’ or celebrate the pandemic as accelerating the transition to ‘digital business models’, others agitate for new recognition of the vulnerable predicament of cultural workers and the value of culture in moments of crisis. This paper proposes that the qualities revealed by, and sometimes enabled through, the Covid pandemic are part of a broader shift away from global neoliberalism, which we can date from the late 1970s to the middle of the last decade.