Medbh Hughes

I am a DPhil candidate in Political Theory at Magdalen College, researching work, labour, and critical theory. My thesis is titled What's wrong with work? The Frankfurt School on labour, leisure, and human happiness. My research seeks to reconstruct the first-generation Frankfurt School's understandings of work, drawing on intellectual history, critical theory, the history of political thought, and continental philosophy. Focussing primarily on the works of Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse, I examine topics such as the value of work and leisure, the future of work in the face of vast technological progress, and the compatibility of work with human flourishing. I also make use of sociological, phenomenological, ecological, and feminist theories to adapt and develop the early Frankfurt School’s understanding of work. As well as conceptualising a critical model of work, my research hopes to imagine what meaningful, liberated work might involve today.

My DPhil scholarship is generously funded by the Department of Politics and International Relations and Magdalen College. Before studying at Oxford, I received a master's degree in the History of Political Thought and Intellectual History from University College London and Queen Mary University of London. My thesis focussed on the humanistic aspects of Max Horkheimer's thought in the text Dawn and Decline. I did my undergraduate degree at King's College London, with a thesis exploring whether there are moral distinctions between selling labour and selling sex.