University of Birmingham Student (Alumni) Papers: Papers of Dorothy Hobson

Dorothy Hobson enrolled on the Centre's undergraduate option for English students in 1974, and subsequently became a postgraduate in the Centre. Her interests were the experiences of working class women and, increasingly, the mass media. These interests came together with the publication of Hobson's book on the Crossroads soap opera in 1982. Her papers primarily comprise coursework and research notes generated during her time as an undergraduate English student taking a course in the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies and as a postgraduate student at the Centre. These papers consist of Media Group presentations 1979; notes on screen and theatre; radio and television programmes of various genres; and situation comedy, all made as part of research by the Media Group 1978-1980; notes and handouts on cultural theory for the taught component of the MA in Cultural Studies 1979-1980; course notes for the Introduction to Cultural Studies course taken by Hobson as an undergraduate English student 1974-1975; and photocopy of undergraduate dissertation submitted as part of the Introduction to Cultural Studies course by Hobson entitled 'Attitudes to Living on a Council Estate: A Study of Primrose Hill, Kings Norton, Birmingham', April 1975.

The papers also include publications relating to Hobson's work at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, including conference papers

Dorothy Hobson was educated at the University of Birmingham where she studied English Literature and Language. Her post graduate research was at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies where she was awarded an MA in Contemporary Cultural Studies. She also studied for a PhD but wrote her first book 'Crossroads The Drama of a Soap Opera' before its completion. She has taught in a number of academic institutions in the Midlands and has lectured in Britain, Ireland and Europe. Between 1982 and 1999 she worked as a broadcasting consultant for various organisations including Channel 4 Television, BBC Drama, the British Film Institute and BBC Birmingham. She returned to teaching in 1999 at the University of Wolverhampton, and is Senior Lecturer in Media & Cultural Studies and Course Leader of the MA Contemporary Media, which she developed. Her teaching areas are drama, soap opera, popular television, television audiences, television news, and public service broadcasting. She is Vice Chair of the Midland Centre of the Royal Television, and is a Fellow of the Royal Television Society. She is a regular contributor to radio and television on media subjects

Source: http://www.wlv.ac.uk/default.aspx?page=28554 Accessed May 2013

Open, access to all registered researchers

Presented by Dorothy Hobson per Kieran Connell, May 2013

Please see https://calmview.bham.ac.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=XUSS74&pos=1 for more information

Catalogued by Kieran Connell, December 2013, as part of AHRC funded project 'The Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies: connected collaboration, connected communities and connected impact. Description prepared in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; and National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997

Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought in advance in writing from the Director, Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections (email: special-collections@contacts.bham.ac.uk). Identification of copyright holders of unpublished material is often difficult. The Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

Special Collections holds research papers of other former members of staff of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies as well as a small departmental archive of the Centre. Please contact Special Collections for further information