Thornton has a BA in Art History and a PhD in Sociology. She writes about contemporary art for The Economist and occasionally other publications such as Artforum.com and Sueddeutsche Zeitung. She contributes to broadcasts by BBC TV and radio, ZDF television, and NPR radio.

A Canadian who came to Britain on a Commonwealth Scholarship in 1988, Thornton’s PhD was published by Polity Press as Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. She co-edited the first edition of The Subcultures Reader.

Thornton was once a member of faculty at Sussex University where she ran the MA in Media Studies. Since 2002, Thornton has been investigating the social, cultural and economic dynamics of contemporary art. Her book, Seven Days in the Art World, is based on extensive ethnographic research, including interviews with over 250 people and hundreds of hours of participant observation. The book has been translated into Spanish, German, Italian, French, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, two Chinese editions (simple characters for the mainland and complex characters for the diaspora), and two Portuguese editions (one for Brazil, the other for Portugal). It is forthcoming in Turkish and Polish.

Thornton is a frequent guest speaker and moderator. She has contributed to a wide range of conference panels and given talks at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, the Royal College of Art and Goldsmiths’ College (London), Bocconi University (Milan), Aarhus University (Denmark), UNAM (Mexico City), the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires), UCLA (Los Angeles), MCA Chicago, University of Chicago, the Corcoran (Washington DC), Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), and the Sydney Writers Festival, among others.

In July 2011, Thornton won a court case against The Telegraph. Mr Justice Tugendhat found that Lynn Barber, a British journalist, had committed libel and malicious falsehood.

Thornton is represented by Andrew Wylie Agency.

Selected interviews:

“A renowned sociologist goes native” by Leslie Camhi Vogue (pdf) (Oct 2008)
With Andras Szanto for ArtWorldSalon (29 Oct 2008)
With Soledad Garcia for Supercream Magazine (Dec 2008)
With David Goodman for BOMB (January 2010)
See BOOKS pages for interviews in foreign languages.