Jonathan Foster Postdoctoral researcher

Literature constitutes an important medium for exploring and conceptualising administrative statecraft - indeed, novels helped to popularise and spread the term “bureaucracy” in the first place. My research explores the relationship between literature and state administration, focusing on representations of British state institutions in the work of Harriet Martineau, Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells and Virginia Woolf. These authors provide trenchant critiques of officialdom, intervening in public and political debates regarding administrative reform, whilst also shedding light on textual features of modern statecraft such as official print culture, administrative databases and bureaucratic forms.