As one of the Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law’s (CISRUL) current PhD candidates, Sam McReavy is conducting research focused on urban spatial theory and Science Fiction as a pedagogical tool in the work of Henri Lefebvre.
Sam’s PhD thesis, titled ‘On the Barricades of the 22nd Century: Henri Lefebvre’s Right to the City in Contemporary Science Fiction’, employs both Marxist theory and an interdisciplinary Lefebrivian approach, and draws on literary studies of China Miéville’s The City and the City, Gwyneth Jones’ Bold as Love, and Sarah Hall’s The Carhullan Army.
As Sam describes, while much research has been conducted on Lefebvre, ‘his argument that the only way to imagine post-revolutionary urban space is through interdisciplinary analysis of Science Fiction’ remains understudied, underscoring the novelty and need for this research.
With each of the novels Sam draws on examining the present urban inequalities and injustices faced by certain economic, racial and gender groups in modern society, the intention of Sam’s work is therefore to ‘study both current forms of oppressive, capitalistic urban space, and the suggested alternatives therein’ these novels. More broadly, Sam hopes his work can play a role in opening up and developing strategies ‘for improving our urban public spaces for those most commonly excluded from them’.
Recently, Sam presented to CISRUL on Gwyneth Jones’ Bold as Love, with a recording available below, along with others on our YouTube channel:
Prior to his research at the University of Aberdeen, he gained degrees from the Universities of St Andrews and Glasgow in English, Modern History, and Critical Theory. He has also written on historical Marxian guerilla revolt, the volunteer literature of the Spanish Civil War, urban social movements, and has upcoming publications on Science Fiction and class struggle. He has delivered seminars on the city in academia, and presentations on improving urban planning, equitable divisions of city-space, and imagining better urban futures through literature.
To read more about Sam and his work, view his CISRUL profile here.