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Daniel Smith

Dr Daniel Smith

Uwch Ddarlithydd

Ysgol y Gwyddorau Cymdeithasol

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Trosolwyg

I am a cultural sociologist with interests in the ways social and cultural forms transform and preserve themselves in new and changing contexts.

Currently I am in the process of completing a monograph to published with Manchester University Press entitled The Fall and Rise of Britain's Upper-Classes: Houses, Kinship and Capital since 1945 (2022). The central argument is that "class" is the idiom through which British subjects confront their own Otherness, how they remain excluded from the very forms of identity they claim to be living with and in. Taking the debates of cultural division and political opposition after the 2016 'Brexit Vote' as its starting point, the book examines the faultlines of British society captured in the writing, practices and cultural sensibilities of Britain's purportedly 'traditional' upper class. 

In Elites, Race and Nationhood: The Branded Gentry I examined how young, overwhelmingly 'white', upper-middle class persons orientated themselves to changing landscapes of wealth and privilege, and how brand-name corporations come to transform and reconstitute traditional forms of elite sociability and exclusivity.

In Comedy & Critique I examine the use of humour in the fashioning of New Left political sensibilities. I explore in this work the way in which the stand-up form - the humorous, solipsistic exploration of self and identity - becomes the sensuous expression of New Left politics, and the limits this has for modes of critique.

In my work on digital sociability, specifically YouTube video-blogging, I examine how the category of 'celebrity' is moblised by YouTube users to ask and address questions around self-expression, the value and limits of individualism, ethical considerations around mutual acknowledgement of one-another, and to dramatise the power-structures of digital sociability itself.

My work has been publicised on various online and print news websites: The Times Higher Education, The Independent, The Times, Prospect Magazine, Vice, and The Conversation. Discussion of Elites, Race and Nationhood: The Branded Gentry can be found on BBC Radio 4 flagship social science programme, Thinking Allowed.

Cyhoeddiad

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

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2016

2015

2014

Articles

Book sections

Books

Websites

Ymchwil

Mae fy niddordebau ymchwil mewn:

  • Cymdeithaseg elites a dosbarth cymdeithasol (ESP. Hunaniaeth dosbarth uchaf (canol) Prydain; arferion defnydd a chyfeiriadedd ffordd o fyw)
  • Cymdeithaseg o enwogion (ESP. rhyngrwyd/cyfryngau cymdeithasol enwog; ideolegau o enwogrwydd; enwogion a (para-) cymdeithasoldeb; enwogion a hunhood)
  • Cymdeithaseg cyfryngau cymdeithasol newydd a chymdeithaseg ddigidol (ESP. YouTube; Fideo-blogio; Hunan-gyflwyniad).
  • Cymdeithaseg y celfyddydau (esp. comedi stand-yp): estheteg a strwythurau cymdeithasol; hiwmor a beirniadaeth; moderniaeth a hiwmor; gwleidyddiaeth hiwmor a hunaniaeth)
  • Damcaniaeth gymdeithasol a diwylliannol (naratif; mythau; semioteg; perfformiadau; estheteg a bywyd cymdeithasol)

Addysgu

I contribute to modules across the undergraduate programme in the School of Social Sciences. 

Bywgraffiad

My undergraduate degree was in History & Sociology (BA Hons) and my PhD was in Sociology, both at the University of Exeter. At Exeter my PhD, a cultural sociological study of elite group identity and sociability, consisted of an ethnographic study of the lifeworld and practices of a group of 18-24 year "upper-middle class" people who were of particular interest to the heritage clothing company, Jack Wills. My ethnography took me from polo fields in the south of England, to ski slopes in the Alps, to expensive sea-side towns in the West of England. (A hard life...). It was at Exeter that I developed my general interests in the sociological classics, esp. Georg Simmel, the sociology of art and artworks, and more broadly approaches to cultural sociology and ethnographic studies. Outside of an interest in the lifestyle of elites, I maintain a keen interest in the lifeworld of stand-up comedy and comedians, as well as an interest in the cultural forms of online, digital sociability.

Aelodaethau proffesiynol

  • Cymrawd Academi Addysg Uwch Prydain (2015 – presennol)
  • Aelod o Gymdeithas Gymdeithasegol Prydain (2014-presennol)

Safleoedd academaidd blaenorol

  • 2019 -presennol       Darlithydd mewn Cymdeithaseg , Ysgol y Gwyddorau Cymdeithasol, Prifysgol Caerdydd.
  • 2016-2018            Uwch Ddarlithydd mewn Cymdeithaseg , Adran y Dyniaethau a'r Gwyddorau Cymdeithasol, Prifysgol Anglia Ruskin.
  • 2015-2016            Darlithydd mewn Cymdeithaseg , Adran y Dyniaethau a'r Gwyddorau Cymdeithasol, Prifysgol Anglia Ruskin.
  • 2013-2015            Darlithydd mewn Cymdeithaseg , Ysgol Seicoleg, Gwleidyddiaeth a Chymdeithaseg, Prifysgol Eglwys Crist Caergaint.
  • 2010-2013            Cynorthwy-ydd Addysgu Graddedig mewn  Cymdeithaseg ac Anthropoleg, Adran Athroniaeth, Cymdeithaseg ac Anthropoleg, Prifysgol Exeter.

Pwyllgorau ac adolygu

Rwyf wedi gweithredu fel cyd-adolygydd i'r American Journal of Cultural Sociology, The Sociological Review, Ymchwil ansoddol, Dadansoddiad Cymdeithasol, Amser a Chymdeithas, Cyfryngau Newydd a Chymdeithas, Cymdeithas Fyd-eang, Journal of Children & Media, Cydgyfeirio,  a Paradeim Perfformio.

Meysydd goruchwyliaeth

Mae gen i ddiddordeb mewn goruchwylio gwaith ar:

  • Dosbarth cymdeithasol
  • Elites
  • Cymdeithaseg o gelf a diwylliant
  • Comedi
  • Diwylliant enwogion
  • Cyfryngau Cymdeithasol Newydd
  • Damcaniaeth ddiwylliannol a chymdeithasol

Contact Details

Email SmithD34@caerdydd.ac.uk
Telephone +44 29225 11098