My first academic job was in the new and rapidly expanding Department of Sociology at Warwick University--I was appointed specifically to develop a joint history and sociology degree. After 15 years at Warwick I moved to Glasgow, at first to co-direct the John Logie Baird Centre for the Study of Film, Television and Music, and then to chair the Department of English Studies. After 12 years there, in 1999, I moved to Stirling University as Professor of Film and Media, which is where I am now. I still regard myself as a sociologist, though I haven't been in a sociology department--or journal--for 15 years now. Berkeley did two things for me: it gave me a proper grounding in European social thought (not something I'd got from Oxford); and it meant I was in the right place at the right time to become a rock critic. Much of my academic career (at least the most enjoyable part) has been devoted to the development of popular music studies.
