Joy Diversion

Justin O’Connor, Professor of Cultural Economy at Adelaide University, Visiting Professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University, and Hallsworth Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester, presents a lecture examining Manchester’s ‘creative city’ narrative and the role of the band Joy Division within it.

Rather than focusing on the winners and losers of the city’s property-led gentrification, the lecture reflects on the specific moment in which Joy Division emerged in the late 1970s. It explores how Manchester’s regeneration narrative drew on the city’s music scene, with Joy Division becoming emblematic of its post-industrial reinvention. This reinvention is linked to “popular modernism” — the meeting of popular culture with modernist ideas in art and architecture — which, according to Mark Fisher, pointed toward a future still open to possibility.

The discussion considers how the bleak tone of Joy Division’s music, often associated with the sentiment of “No Future,” became central to Manchester’s reinvention. It asks whether this music marked the end of something — a moment where the past could be mourned as it faded — rather than a prelude to regeneration. In this light, Joy Division may speak more powerfully to the present moment than to the narratives of civic optimism in which they have been framed.

Justin O’Connor is a leading scholar in cultural economy and creative industries. His research contributed to the creation of Manchester’s Creative Industries Development Service (CIDS), and he served as co-chair. He was the lead academic advisor to the Urbis museum of the contemporary city and led the team that established Manchester’s Northern Quarter. Between 2012 and 2018, he was part of UNESCO’s Expert Facility supporting the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Cultural Diversity.

He is the co-author of Red Creative: Culture and Modernity in China (2020) and the author of Culture is Not an Industry (2024), published by Manchester University Press as part of the Manchester Capitalism series.