Dr Nico Pizzolato

Director of Postgraduate Research Studies

Nico Pizzolato

  • School Other Research

  • Department Research Knowledge Transfer Office

  • Location London

Research activities

My current research projects are on:

- coerced and 'unfree' labour practices in the twentieth century United States, in particular in relation to African Americans and immigrant workers

- Workers' autonomy and self-activity in the workplace

- Employee-owned organisations and alternative forms of capitalism

- Pedagogy as a means of political education and change, in particular in relations to thinkers of radical pedagogy like Gramsci and Freire

- An interdisciplinary history of the factory

I welcome the opportunity to supervise doctoral candidates researching their  candidates  in the following areas:

- Modern Slavery and Business

- Industrial Relations

- Global, transnational and comparative Labour Studies

- Precariousness and the labor market; labour migration

- Platform work and the Digital Factory

- Social Theory and Critical Pedagogy

I am happy to consider doctoral supervision on any of these areas.


Current Teaching

Most of my teaching is devoted to develop research students.

I am the Director of Postgraduate Research Studies and in that role I lead on the governance, quality assurance and development of postgraduate research in the University and across research partner institutions. I convene postgraduate researcher  development session on different methodologies, writing and different aspects of being a doctoral researcher.

I am a supervisor in the DProf (Transdisciplinary). This is a doctoral programme aimed at senior professionals who carry out academic research in their organisation or as part of their professional practice. I currently supervise 16 students and I have seen a few through completion.

I am an enthusiast of digital learning , in particular as applied to adult education in university and in the workplace, and in general the possibilities of learning in a digital, interconnected world.

I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.


Biography

My research interests are located at the intersection between history, social theory and labour and management studies. Most of my work touches on the following themes: labour migration and social movements, unfree and coerced labour in advanced capitalism, social policy in the age of Fordism, workplace democracy, critical pedagogy.

I am the author of Challenging Global Capitalism: Labor Migration, Radical Struggle, and Urban Change in Detroit and Turin (Palgrave, 2013). I am the co-editor of the book Gramsci: A Pedagogy to Change the World (Springer, 2017). My work as appeared in leading peer-reviewed journals such as American Historical Review, Labor History, International Review of Social History, International Working Class History, Capital&Class and Contemporary European History. My research has also been disseminated in critical online magazines such as Viewpoint and Commonware.

I also have a strong interest in writing for professional and academic pratice. I run writing workshops as part of my teaching portfolio. 

I have gained my PhD at University College London, and lectured at Queen Mary, University of London, Università di Palermo, and the University of Edinburgh. I am a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and of the Royal Historical Society. I am a seminar convenor at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London..

Publications

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