William Davies, Nervous States

42 minutes

Richard Whitby, The Lost Ones, 2019. Commissioned for Jerwood/FVU Awards 2019: Going, Gone. Installation view at Jerwood Space. Photo: Anna Arca

Responding to the Jerwood/FVU Awards 2019: Going, Gone, William Davies examines how Brexit poses fundamental questions about the standing of experts and knowledge in society, and what kinds of alternative politics might arise where questions of belonging and recognition are elevated above those of progress and welfare.

William Davies is a writer, academic and political economist with particular interests in neoliberalism, history of economics and economic sociology. His work explores the way in which economics influences our understanding of politics, society and ourselves, themes which he has addressed in two books, The Happiness Industry: How the government & big business sold us wellbeing and The Limits of Neoliberalism: authority, sovereignty & the logic of competition. Davies is Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Centre, which explores critical, cultural and political perspectives on economic life. Davies teaches at Goldsmiths University, London and has written for publications such as The Guardian, The New Statesman, London Review of Books, New Left Review, openDemocracy, The New York Times and The Atlantic.