Academic Staff: Steve Ludlam

Dr. Steve Ludlam, BA, PhD (Sheffield)

Senior Lecturer

Telephone: +44 (0)114 222 1665
Fax: +44 (0)114 222 1717
Room: 1.23 Elmfield

Profile

Steve Ludlam is Senior Lecturer in Politics. He did his first degree at Sheffield, as a mature student, and then a PhD at Sheffield on British trade unions and public spending cuts in the 1970s. After teaching history and politics in Sheffield and Preston, he joined the Department in 1993. He was founding convenor of the Political Studies Association's specialist Labour Movements Group.

He is a member of the Cuba Research Forum, and The Society for Latin American Studies, and an honorary member of the Faculty of the Third Age, University of Havana. His main research interests are in the politics of post-Cold War Cuba, and contemporary left politics in Latin America.

Teaching

Despite all the material pressures of the student experience today, I cling to the view that learning is an adventure and a privilege, and I try to design my modules to enable students to investigate and write in ways that engage them, whether their enthusiasm (in no particular order) is for contemporary political history, political economy, political participation, theory, or ideas.

As a former school governor and having school teachers in my family, I am aware of the different ways people learn (looking, listening, writing, doing, inter-acting etc). I no longer use Duplo™ to illustrate theories of economic cycles, but I do have a particular commitment to including illustrative audio-visual materials in my lectures and seminars, usually in the form of appropriate photographic and documentary materials.

In our subject, the most important transferable skill is structured reading and writing. I put a lot of effort into stocking materials in the library and into identifying digitally accessible journal and other materials, and into creating archives of material on my module’s websites. In the past I established the department’s first online module site, and the university’s first hypertext learning resource.

I am delighted that the Department encourages variety in forms of assessment, since I believe that unseen examinations test too many non-academic factors, such as luck, gender, and personality. So my modules are essay-assessed.

Ours is also a Department that encourages and requires that we teach in our areas of research and enthusiasm. My main teaching is directly linked to my current research on Cuba and Latin America and I hope to communicate some of my engagement in my teaching.

My specialist modules are:

Dr Steve Ludlam, University of Sheffield: 'The Parasitic Classes'
More Politics Brought to Life videos

Recent Invited Papers and Keynote Lectures

‘A Cada Cual’: Recovering Cuba’s Politics of Distribution’ to the 5th International Congress of Labour Lawyers and Trade Union Lawyers, Havana Cuba, March 2011.

Key Projects/Grants

Awarding Body: Nuffield Foundation
People Involved: Steve Ludlam
Title of Research: Trade union participation in Cuban politics
Total award: £5190

Professional activities and recognition

Invited participant/presenter Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Department for International Development/Northern College Latin America Workshops, Caribbean Council, Centre for Research on Cuba, Latin America 2010, Latin America 2011,
Board Member, International Institute for Cuban Studies
Honorary Member, Catedra del Adulto Mayor, Universidad de la Habana
Series Editor, Manchester University Press Critical Labour Studies Series

Current Research

My research interests are in radical politics in Latin America. My principal research is on post-Cold War Cuba, with a particular interest in its labour politics and employment relations, and how these are changing as the country reforms its political economy and its version of socialism. I have also investigated and written about Cuba and human Rights diplomacy, politics in Cuba-America, and the development of third age education in Cuba. More widely I have written about, and edited books about the emergence of a wave of centre-left ‘pink tide’ governments in Latin America, and right-wing responses to this phenomenon.

Key Publications

Right-Wing Politics in the New Latin America: Reaction and Revolt (2011, Zed Books) ed. with G. Lievesley and F. Dominguez.
Reclaiming ‘Our America’: Radical Social Democracy in Latin America (2009, Zed Books) ed. with G. Lievesley.
Labour, the state, social movements and the challenge of neo-liberal globalisation (2007, Manchester University Press) ed. with A.J.Taylor,A.Gamble and S.Wood.
Governing as New Labour (2004, Palgrave) ed. with M.J. Smith xii + 261pp
Interpreting the Labour Party: Approaches to Labour Politics and History (2003, Manchester University Press) ed. with J. Callaghan & S.J. Fielding x + 210 pp
Politics and Employment Relations (2003, British Journal of Industrial Relations) ed. with S. Wood, E. Heery, & A.J.Taylor 209 pp

Click here for Dr Ludlam's full list of publications.

PhD Supervision

His PhD supervision includes/has included:

Political Economy Reform in Cuba
Economic Crisis in Turkey and Argentina
Trade Union growth in Mexico
Disability Policy and New Labour
Worker Participation in Spain and UK
The Labour Right
Swedish Social Democracy
The Labour Left's Alternative Economic Strategy
Socialisation Debates in the Labour Party
The 1964-70 Labour Governments
Railway Policy Networks
The Europe of the Regions

He is happy to supervise doctoral research on Cuba and on the left in Latin America.