In Episode 6 we’re talking about contemporary gendered inequalities of academic labour. Our guests are Katherine Twamley, Professor of Sociology at UCL’s Social Research Institute and Charlotte Faircloth, Associate Professor of Social Science also based at UCL’s Social Research Institute. As well as discussing their recent study exploring how families with children experienced the COVID-19 pandemic which lifted the curtain on gendered dynamics underpinning everyday life, we’re getting their take on what it’s like to be an ‘academic wife’ today.

Credits

Guests: Katherine Twamley and Charlotte Faircloth
Hosts: Ros Edwards and Val Gillies
Producer: Chris Garrington
Music: The Beat of Nature, Olexy
Artwork: Krissie Brighty-Glover

Guest Bios

Katherine Twamley is a sociologist and founding Programme Director of the UCL BSc Sociology undergraduate programme (2018-2022). She chairs the UCL Sociology Network - the cross-university group for sociologists at UCL - and is an editorial board member of The Sociological Review and editor of the Routledge Sociological Futures book series. Katherine’s research focuses on gender, love and intimacy, social policy, and families, with a particular interest in India and the Indian diaspora. Katherine recently led the British Academy funded FACT-COVID study (with Charlotte Faircloth and Humera Iqbal) which explores how families with children have experienced the COVID-19 pandemic across ten different countries. She tweets @KTwamley.

Charlotte Faircloth is an Associate Professor of Social Science in the UCL Social Research Institute. With colleagues in the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies at Kent, Charlotte is co-author of Parenting Culture Studies published by Palgrave (2014, with a new edition due out in 2024). She also recently co-edited Parenting in Global Perspective: Negotiating Ideologies of Kinship, Self and Politics published by Routledge and is co-editor of numerous journal special issues, including Sociological Research Online, the Journal of Family Issues and Anthropology and Medicine. She is co-editor of Family Life in a Time of Covid: International Perspectives (2023).

Episode Resources

• “Academia as the (com)promised land for women?” in Academic Working Lives: Experiences, Practice and Change - Sandra Acker and Michelle Webber
• Cannibal Capitalism: How Our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Plant – and What We Can Do About It - Nancy Fraser
• Mumsnet Academic Common Room thread: Male academics with wives/partners who don't work. Anyone else noticed this?

Find out more about Thanks for Typing at The Sociological R

In Episode 5 we’re talking about the contribution that wives have made to the discipline of sociology in the past and how this has helped to shape the sociology of the present.

We’re joined by Lebogang Mokwena, Lecturer in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town, and John Goodwin, Professor of Sociology and Sociological Practice at the University of Leicester.

Lebogang’s work intersects cultural and historical sociology, and as well as work on the cultural, economic and global histories of objects, she has studied the early twentieth century career of the sociologist Sol Plaatje.

John has a broad interest in sociology as a craft and skill, and, of particular relevance to this discussion, has researched the sociologies of Pearl Jephcott and C. Wright Mills.

Episode credits

Guests: Lebogang Mokwena and John Godwin
Hosts: Ros Edwards and Val Gillies
Producer: Chris Garrington
Music: The Beat of Nature, Olexy
Artwork: Krissie Brighty-Glover

Episode Resources

• “Searching for pearls: ‘doing biographical research on Pearl Jephcott” – John Goodwin
• “Pearl Jephcott: The legacy of a forgotten sociological research pioneer” – John Goodwin and Henrietta O’Connor
• Married Women Working – Pearl Jephcott
• White Collar: The American Middle Classes – C. Wright Mills
• Lover of His People: A biography of Sol Plaatje – Seetsele Modiri Molema
• Sol T. Plaatje: A Life in Letters – Brian Willan and Sabata-mpho Mokae
• Sol Plaatje: A life of Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje 1876-1932 – Brian Willan

Find out more about Thanks for Typing at The Sociological Review.

In Episode 4 Ros and Val talk about their own research looking at the contributions of wives to some of the most important social studies of our time. They’re also joined by Selina Todd, Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford whose research focuses on the history of working-class life and women's lives. She is also the author of the Sunday Times bestseller The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class 1910-2010, and is currently working on a history of social mobility in modern Britain.

Episode Credits

Guests: Selina Todd
Hosts: Ros Edwards and Val Gillies
Producer: Chris Garrington
Music: The Beat of Nature, Olexy
Artwork: Krissie Brighty-Glover

Episode Resources

• British Sociology: A History - John Scott
• Family and Kinship in East London - Michael Young and Peter Wilmott
• Snakes and Ladders: The Great British Social Mobility Myth - Selina Todd
• The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class 1910-2010 - Selina Todd
• “#ThanksForTyping … and the fieldwork: the role of sociologists’ wives in classic British studies” - Ros Edwards and Val Gillies
• The Dennis Marsden Collection
• The Papers of Peter and Phyllis Willmott
• Search the hashtag #ThanksforTyping on X (formerly twitter)

Find out more about Thanks for Typing at The Sociological Review.