Andrew Milner

Andrew John Milner (born 9 September 1950) is Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at Monash University. From 2014 until 2019 he was also Honorary Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. In 2013 he was Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at the Institut für Englische Philologie, Freie Universität Berlin.

Milner was born in Leeds, UK, the son of John Milner and Dorothy Ibbotson. He was educated at Batley Grammar School and later at the London School of Economics, where he studied sociology. He graduated with a BSc (Econ) degree, with honours in Sociology, in 1972 and a PhD in the Sociology of Literature in 1977. He married Verity Burgmann, the Australian political scientist and labour historian, in 1977. They have three sons.^[1] He is a member of the Melbourne Cricket Club and an inaugural member of the Melbourne Victory Football Club.

Milner was politically active, by turn, in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Labour Party Young Socialists, the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, the International Socialists, the Socialist Workers Party (Britain) and, in Australia, People for Nuclear Disarmament.^[2] In the early 21st century he appears to have joined the Australian Greens.^[3]

Milner's academic interests include literary and cultural theory, the sociology of literature, utopia, dystopia and science fiction. His work has been published in English in Australia, India, the US and the UK and has been translated into French, German, Portuguese, Chinese, Persian and Korean. He first attracted attention for work, strongly influenced by Lucien Goldmann, on the sociology of 17th-century literature. Subsequently, he has become better known for his advocacy of Raymond Williams's cultural materialism and for studies of utopian and dystopian science fiction. He also has a strong interest in the cultural sociology of Pierre Bourdieu.^[4]