Christopher Thorpe is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Sociology, Philosophy, and Anthropology at the University of Exeter. He is a historically oriented cultural sociologist whose specialist interests centre on cultural representation and constructions of otherness, particularly English and later British representations of Italy and the Italians in the time spanning the Renaissance to the present day. His most recent publications in this area include, Beyond Said and the Saidian Paradigm: Towards a Strong Program Account of Cultural Representation (American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 2025); Towards a Cultural Sociology of the Uses of Classical Literature: Deploying Literary Representations of Rome and the Romans in England Between the 15th and 18th Centuries (with Inglis in Classical Literature, 2023); and Cultural Sociology of Cultural Representations: Visions of Italy and the Italians in England and Britain from the Renaissance to the Present Day (Routledge, 2023). He is currently working on a monograph that utilizes Civil Sphere Theory and Strong Program ideas and concepts to recover and reconstruct the sociological significance of cultural representation, namely, as more than just a site for observing negative forms of power, relations, and essentializing processes. The study uses CST to theorize the meanings of British Italophilia and the processes by which actors and groups work to remake, manage, and maintain their love of the Italian cultural other. More broadly, he has written in the areas of classical and modern social theory, cultural globalization, and cultural translation. He is currently editor of the journals Cultural Sociology (Sage) and Dialogues in Sociology (Sage).
