Theories of care have recently taken up a prominent place in the interdisciplinary humanities. This discussion of that work by two key practitioners will focus on its utility for illuminating a range of questions, approaches and conjunctures and is open to colleagues and students in all subject areas.

Helen Wood is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies in the Department of Sociology and Policy at the University of Aston, Birmingham UK. She is Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded project ‘ReCARETV: Reality television, working practices and duty of care project: 2023-2026’. She was parliamentary adviser to the 2019 inquiry into reality television and has published widely on issues related to television, gender and class. She was long-serving editor of the European Journal of Cultural Studies and her recent work includes the forthcoming book Audience for Routledge in 2023.

Jo Littler is Professor of Cultural, Media and Social Analysis at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her books include The Politics of Heritage: The legacies of ‘race’, with Roshi Naidoo (2005); Against Meritocracy: Culture, Power and Myths of Mobility (2018); with The Care Collective, The Care Manifesto (Verso, 2020); and Left Feminisms: Conversations on the Personal and the Political (2023). She is currently working on a Leverhulme-funded project called Ideologies of Inequality.