Robert Hlathi Freeman

Thesis Title: 'Moments of Evaluation: Literature, the University and Value (1965-2015)'

Supervisor: Professor Ankhi Mukherjee

Research Interests: Literary value; Canon and the classic; cultural theory; human mobility; modernism; administrative and constitutional law; world literatures and theories of interpretation.

Doctoral Research: My work explores the idea of literary value, drawing on disputes over evaluation that took place at the universities of Cambridge, Stanford, Cape Town and the London Consortium between 1965 and 2015. Particular areas of interest include the idea of the classic, the relationship between canon and empire, curriculum formation, institutional histories, theories of culture, modes of interpretation and the establishment of value. I also consider the biographical and institutional position of critics – such as T.S. Eliot, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Colin MacCabe, Xolela Mangcu, Frank Kermode and Ankhi Mukherjee – who have engaged with questions of literary value.