State Of The Theory

This is Episode 13 of the State of the Theory Podcast. Politics. Power. Popular Culture. And other stuff, probably. In this series, we’re like super nerdy philosophical DJs: mashing up Serious Academic Questions with the most topical news and trends in pop culture. Each week, we’ll tackle a new topic and collide it with ‘critical theory’ (we’re pretty loose with our definitions, though, so expect the unexpected). Our aim is to destroy the stuff we know, explore the stuff we don’t and unsettle everything we think we know about the world. We take the obvious, the commonsensical, the certain, and then we rip it all to shreds. We are your theory doctors and we are always on call. In this episode, we discuss the tragedy that took place at the Hillsborough football ground in Sheffield in 1989, the way the police and emergency authorities failed, and the way that failure was covered up. We explore particular narratives of class and regional identity that allowed for the cover-up to work. The texts we refer to are: