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Centre Members

Our members consist of scholars who are passionate about conducting research into issues at the heart of what it means to be ‘global’ in terms of identity, communication and development. They publish monographs and articles in top journals and attract research funding from the AHRC, ESRC, Leverhulme and Wellcome Trust. Many of them collaborate with partners across countries in the EU and beyond. They hold expertise in the Social Sciences, Law, Arts, Humanities and Business, and often work closely with the public, third sector parties and major stakeholders. Current membership is:

Members

Dr Shona Koren Paterson Dr Shona Koren Paterson
Email Dr Shona Koren Paterson Director of Global Lives Research Centre / Senior Lecturer
Building on an academic transdisciplinary background in Natural Sciences (Marine Biology, Resource Management) and Social Sciences (Climate Adaptation, Social Justice, Environmental Policy), Shona’s guiding focus remains the generation and translation of defensible research informed by the needs of society and co-created with the intended beneficiaries. Her research is motivated by international frameworks such as the UN 2030 Agenda, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the COP21 Paris Agreement. She has spent her working career building partnerships and knowledge exchange networks with local communities and stakeholders to achieve mutually beneficial social and ecological goals. With a special interest in marginalised communities and social justice and equity, Shona’s recent research has focused on global flood risk and resilience, climate risk assessments, adaptation and adaptive capacity in urbanising coastal areas. Embracing a transdisciplinary approach, Shona works at the interface of science-policy as well as effective and fit-for-audience communication of data and knowledge to ensure increased impactful discourse around risk. She has research experience in the Caribbean, USA, UK and Ireland, as well as a global perspective through involvement with Future Earth and its associated global research project Future Earth Coasts. Shona seeks to engage with a range of emerging global challenges through collaboration and co-production of knowledge by employing a transdisciplinary and applied bridging of science, social science, the arts and humanities at local, national, and international scales. Co-production enables science and research to have greater impact on sustainable development outcomes. Shona works to facilitate iterative and collaborative processes involving diverse types of expertise, knowledge and actors to produce context-specific knowledge and pathways towards a sustainable future. There is a real and urgent need to understand and tackle intractable global challenges in the face of constantly shifting biophysical and social realities. Shona’s work, with a range of partners across the globe, embraces this need, recognising that sustainability and equitable development, as illustrated by the UN Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), requires transformative social and economic pathways co-created with intended beneficiary communities. The overall achievement of the SDGs depends not only upon responsible economic development administered through the lens of environmental sustainability, but perhaps more significantly, through enhanced social inclusion and resilience building at all scales. At Brunel, Shona is the Director of the Centre for Global Lives, the co-lead of the Equitable Development and Resilience Research Group as well as a member of the Centre for Flood Risk and Resilience. Examples of on-going research projects include the ESKE project and Catching a Wave. Most recently she has been involved in the co-curation of an unwavering immersive virtual installation on Long COVID in partnership with artists and scientitsts through the New York Gallery/Forum Relational Space.
Dr Andrew Green Dr Andrew Green
Email Dr Andrew Green Senior Lecturer in Education
Andrew Green taught English in a variety of schools in Oxfordshire and London before becoming Head of English at Ewell Castle School, Surrey. He now leads the BA Education at Brunel University London. His research interests include literary education, the teaching of English post-16 and issues surrounding the transition between the study of English post-16 and at university. Career History Presentations Green, A. (2015) Approaches to Developing critical reading. School of Advanced Study, University of London. Green, A. (2014) School Direct: Ideology and Impact. The Battle for Teacher Education: an international conference. University of Bergen, Norway. Green, A. (2012) Enhancing the Quality of Independent Study in Higher Education. Learning in Higher Education Symposium. University of Akureyri, Iceland. Green, A. (2012) Reimagining Poetry. Creative Approaches to Poetry Teaching. Brunel University. Green, A. (2011) The Use of Audience Response Systems in the English Classroom. NATE Conference. British Library. Green, A. (2011) Elements of Gothic: Wuthering Heights and Macbeth. Sutton Grammar School. Green, A. (2011) The Poetry of Philip Larkin. Dulwich College. Green, A. (2011) The Edmonds Lecture: English Pastoral and modern verse. Wellington College. Green, A. (2010) Wuthering Heights. Slough Grammar School Green, A. (2010) From Sixth Form to University: Supporting transition into Higher Education. 11th Symposium on Learning & Teaching. Brunel University. Green, A. (2010) Students’ experience of Creative Writing at A level. NATE Conference. Leicester. Green, A. (2009) The Poetry of William Blake. Slough Grammar School Green, A. (2008) Gothic Literature. Wellington College. Green, A. (2008) The Problems of Independent Study. Launch event of Pedagogy. Higher Education Academy English Subject Centre. Green, A. (2008) Creative Writing and A level English Literature. Creative Writing and How to Teach It. Brunel University. Green, A. (2007) The Poetry of William Blake. Wellington College. Green, A. (2007) Use of Directed Activities Related to Texts in higher education. Renewals Conference. Royal Holloway University of London. Green, A. (2006) Developing undergraduate reading skills. Languages, Linguistics and area Studies Conference. London. Green, A. (2005) Managing change between school and university. Higher Education Academy National Subject Centre Conference. Nottingham. Book reviews Starting an English Literature Degree 'This unusual, detailed, and thought-provoking book will help students of English Literature come to grips with their studies and take a share of responsibility for their own learning. It thus has the potential to make a major impact on the way English is studied.' - Professor Ben Knights, Director, English Subject Centre 'I liked this book a lot - It covered a vast amount, ranging from applications and interviews, Preparatory exercises, through its materials that will prove useful when a student starts their course. Great sections on suggestions for group activities that instructors may find useful.' - Matthew Woodcock, University of East Anglia. Becoming a Reflective English Teacher This timely and valuable textbook will be of enormous help to students and trainee teachers on a variety of courses and routes into the English teaching professio0n. Its crucial emphasis on the importance of theory and reflection as well as on practice represents a considered and powerful riposte to prevailing reductive approaches to English teaching in our schools. I will certainly be recommending it to my students. (Dr Andrey Rosowsky, Director of Initial Teacher Education, University of Sheffield) Research group(s) Pedagogy and Professional Education (PAPE) Module Leader on BA Education for ED1065 Module Leader on BA Education for ED2350 Module Leader on BA Education for ED2606 Module Leader on BA Education for ED3705
Professor Alexandra Xanthaki Professor Alexandra Xanthaki Alexandra is a leading expert on indigenous rights in international law. AMong her several publications, her monograph Indigenous Rights and United Nations Standards: Self-determination, Culture and Land (Cambridge University Press) is considered a reference source on the topic. In 2011 Alexandra co-edited Reflections on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Hart) and most recently, in 2017, Indigenous Peoples' Cultural Heritage (Martinus Nijhoff/ Brill). Her work has been cited repeatedly in United Nations documents and she has given keynote speeches around the world, including the Arctic Centre, Rovaniemi; the KL Bar, Malaysia; Trento, Italy; and London. She has worked closely with the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Issues, the ILO. Currently she is working with Minority Rights Group International on the rights of the Latin American community in the 7sisters re-development in Haringey, London. She has taught civil servants, indigenous leaders and activities in Vietnam, Pretoria, Kyiv, and London. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (University of London). Before she joined Brunel university, Alexandra taught in Keele and Liverpool. She has received the STAR award for her teaching and stduent support. She is a member of the Human Rights Faculty of the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Oxford and has been an external examiner in several law departments, currently at Birkbeck. Since October 2015, Alexandra leads the Athens Refugee Project, where she takes Brunel law students to Athens to volunteer in migrant and refugee sites, provide assistance and learn more on the refugee crisis in Europe from discussions with state authoriites, NGOs and IGOs. She has found invaluable partners in Maria Voutsinou from the Greek Ombudsman for Human Rights and Kenneth Hansen from Faros ('The Lighthouse'), an NGO on unaccompanied minors. Brunel University has received a congratulatory letter from the Greek state for this project. In 2017, Alexandra organised a series of academic multi-disciplinary events on Migrant and Refugee Rights in London (with IALS) and Athens. Qualifications: LLB (Athens); LLM (QUB); PhD (Keele); Lawyer (Athens Bar) International Human Rights; International Minority Rights Student Support As the Director of Research, I am responsible for the strategic direction of the School in relation to staff research activity and research student matters.
Dr Andra Ivanescu Dr Andra Ivanescu
Email Dr Andra Ivanescu Senior Lecturer in Games Studies
Andra is a Lecturer in Game Studies and a ludomusicologist. Andra’s research interests are broad, going beyond her primary focus of music in videogames, and including appropriation and nostalgia, genre, gender studies, and film studies. Her research has been published in journals like The Soundtrack (2015) and she has presented papers at a variety of conferences including Myth, Fantasy and Fairy Tales in Literature and the Arts (Cambridge, 2013) and the Ludomusicology Conference (Chichester, 2014; Utrecht, 2015; Southampton, 2016). She is also co-editor of the academic journal Book 2.0. Andra has also led (and co-led) two Global Lives-funded research clusters focusing on creative processes in poetry and games, as well as the dissemination of academic research through digital games. Andra's first monograph - Popular Music in the Nostalgia Video Game: The Way It Never Sounded - is now available from Palgrave Macmillan. Andra teaches a number of game studies modules at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, including Game Studies 1: Introduction to Game Studies, Game Genre, and Socio-Cultural Studies. My research interests fall at the intersection between video games, music, and popular culture. Video Game Music Nostalgia Popular Music Quotation and appropriation (especially in relation to popular music and screen media) Gender Studies and Video Games Game Studies Game Genre Research Methods Socio-Cultural Studies
Dr Anita Howarth Dr Anita Howarth
Email Dr Anita Howarth Senior Lecturer in Journalism
Anita Howarth's research interests lie at the intersection of media/journalism and social justice issues, with a particular focus on how interactions of different political actors legitimize or challenge, resist or disrupt dominant perspectives. The nature of the research focus has led Anita to interdisciplinary research that draws on media/journalism studies, political thought and policy studies as well as sociology. She is currently writing a monograph entitled Britain's Manufactured Migrant Crisis: A Visual Politics, that is due to be published by Taylor & Francis in late 2025 and as part of the primary analysis Anita has developed a new methodology to deal with uncertainties over what images are manipulated, reappropriated and recycled and which are not. The methodology underpins the research on a range of themes including: The performative politics of cruelty under the Conservative Government Challenging dominant narratives through cartoons and animation The visual strategies of the radical right. Other research themes include Political, media and public struggles over food whether it be GMOs, contamination and hunger/food banks. British policy and media responses to contemporary refugee crises home and overseas (including at Calais) Fake news, reappropriated images and hoax websites. Prior to entering academia, Anita worked as a journalist on the business press, online news sites and financial desk of a national newspaper Political communication Food communication Risk communication · Humanitarian communication, migration and refugees · The politics and communication of food · Digital technologies in university classrooms · Environmental communication, journalism and risk Year 1 module: Foundations of research Year 3 module: Journalism in the Digital Age PG Module: Ethics PG Module: International Institutions
Dr Caroline Ruddell Dr Caroline Ruddell
Email Dr Caroline Ruddell Divisional Lead/Reader
Caroline Ruddell is Programme Lead and Senior Lecturer in Film and Television in the Department of Arts and Humanities. Before this she was Programme Director in Film at St. Mary’s University, Strawberry Hill. Caroline specialises in animation and teaches across a range of areas including gender and sexuality, horror and television, as well as production. Caroline specialises in animation, and has published widely on the concept of craft in animation practices and the representation of identity onscreen. She is the author of the monograph The Besieged Ego, which critically appraises the representation of doppelgangers and split or fragmentary characters onscreen across live-action and animation. Caroline has also edited 4 book collections. Caroline is the Book Series Editor of Palgrave Animation, alongside Professor Paul Ward. Caroline is Associate Editor for animation: an interdisciplinary journal, published by Sage. Animation Representation of identity onscreen
Professor Claire Lynch Professor Claire Lynch Claire Lynch is a Professor in English and Irish Literature at Brunel University London. She specialises in teaching contemporary British and Irish fiction, Modernism, and Life Writing (both theory and practice) at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She is the author of three books and numerous articles and chapters. Lynch, C. (2021). Small: On Motherhoods. London: Brazen/Hachette. Lynch, C. (2014). Cyber Ireland: Text, Image, Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lynch, C. (2009). Irish Autobiography: Stories of Self in the Narrative of a Nation. Oxford: Peter Lang. Her debut novel, A Family Matter, will be published in spring 2025. My research sits in and across two significant areas of literary scholarship: Irish Studies and Life Writing. I have published articles in the leading peer reviewed journals in my fields including, Auto/Biography, Biography, Prose Studies, Irish Studies Review and Irish University Review. My reputation in the field is cemented by invitations to contribute to generation defining collections, including the forthcoming Oxford Handbook to W.B. Yeats (Oxford University Press) and Technologies in/of Irish Literature (Cambridge University Press). My first monograph Irish Autobiography: Stories of Selves in the Narrative of a Nation (2009) continues to be significant as testified by reviews in all of the major journals in the field. My second monograph Cyber Ireland: Text, Image, Culture (2014), published by Palgrave, is the first monograph to explore the intersections between cyber culture and Irish literature. Over six chapters, the book examines how Irish writers engage with new technologies and the parallel impact such technologies have on Irish writing. The book is the result of several years sustained investigation which included conducting interviews with government agencies, games designers, programmers, and digital artists. Detailed literary analysis of a range of texts in multiple genres, extensive archival research, and the acquisition of new expertise in relation to the economic factors which led to the Celtic Tiger phenomenon and subsequent financial collapse. I am commited to expanding my research practice using creative writing methods and approaches. As an established scholar of life writing I found that it was ideologically and methodologically important to test the claims I had been making for over a decade. In other words, to put my theoretical work into practice. This work can be seen in traditional academic publications, such as my chapter ‘Writing Memoir’ in Research Methodologies for Auto/Biography Studies (Routledge, 2019) and in more public facing outlets, including the Washington Post and BBC Radio 4. Irish Literature Autobiography and Life Writing Cyberculture and hypertexts Childhood and youth I feel strongly that degree programmes must meet the needs of students, intellectually, socially, and economically. As such, my approach to teaching is grounded in the idea of reflection, taking into account the student I was, the academic I am, and the lifelong learner and teacher I hope to be. I am an advocate of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), believing that high quality teaching does not ‘emerge simply from faculty enthusiasm for their subjects’ but is honed through continuous professional development and familiarity with up-to-date pedagogic principles (Auten & Twigg, 2015). I am known for teaching innovation and leading projects designed to enhance student experience. The Reading Resilience teaching model (Douglas et al, 2015) has been at the centre of my pedagogy for several years. My dissemination of this work, including establishing the ‘Brunel Reading Lab’, was shared with colleagues across the university via the ReThink Forum, the Employability Summit, and funded by the Teach Brunel initiative. This important work, designed to support students through the transition into university level reading, has been shared beyond Brunel at the Institute of Advanced Study Seminar series and via two national workshops funded by Higher Education Academy Grants. I have a sustained commitment to developing my own teaching practice and contributing to improved learning cultures in the sector. Most recently, as a Brunel Teaching Fellow, I led a CPD session for colleagues at all stages of their teaching careers as part of the ‘Re-booting the Academy’ series. Curent teaching includes: EN1708 Reading Resilience - Module Leader EN2014: Modernism - Module Leader EN3604: Writing Ireland- Module Leader EN3003: Special Project- Dissertation Supervisor
Professor Daniele Rugo Professor Daniele Rugo I am an award-winning filmmaker and scholar. My main interests are in documentary and conflict, world cinema and film-philosophy. My most recent film The Soil and The Sea (2023) - with a text by writer Elias Khoury - unveils the violence lying beneath a garden, a school, a cafe, a hotel, and other unremarkable landscapes, in a search for mass graves from Lebanon's Civil War. About a War (2018) explores violence and change through the testimonies of former fighters from the same conflict. I also work on landscape and environmental films. My research has been funded by AHRC, ESRC and British Academy Before joining Brunel in 2013 I have taught at Goldsmiths, University of London, Dartmouth College (US) and University of Melbourne. · Documentary Film and Conflict (Theory and Practice) · Film-Philosophy · Landscape and environmental film
Professor Dorothy Yen Professor Dorothy Yen
Email Professor Dorothy Yen Divisional Lead / Professor in Marketing
Professor Dorothy A. Yen is a Professor in Marketing. She is currently the Director of Research at Brunel Business School, Brunel University London. Dorothy takes a consumer-centric approach to understanding and discussing marketing, branding, and tourism matters. Dorothy studies how culture affects human behaviour, in both B2B and B2C domains. In the B2B domain, she looks at cross-cultural business relationships, with a particular focus on understanding how cultural-specific factors affect business relationships and collaborations. In the B2C domain, she studies consumer acculturation and sojourners’ and migrants' consumption practices and social media activities in relation to their cultural identity, as well as tourism boycotts and tourists' interactions with destinations on social media. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dorothy explored how migrants in the UK attempted to cope with the life-threatening disease while dealing with institutional uncertainty and a hostile host environment. Dorothy’s proposal on branding Wales as a land of dragons and legends triggered numerous discussions, and she has been invited to give evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee. Dorothy is a member of the Marketing and Corporate Brand Research Group at Brunel Business School and a lab leader of the Responsible Consumption and the Circular Economy Lab for the CBASS research centre of Substantiality and Entrepreneurship. Office hours are provided on Wednesdays from 11am to 1pm. Students can also email her to book an appointment at a mutually convenient time. This can be either on campus or via Microsoft TEAM upon mutual agreement. I'm interested in the following topics: Older adults as ageing consumers, healthy ageing practices and wellbeing Promoting Wales to international tourists as a global tourist destination Migrants as ethnic consumers, their identity, acculturation and their role in the host societies. Educating children as agentic consumers to reduce food waste Research group(s) Marketing and Corporate Brand Management Research Group (MCBM) Dorothy enjoys taking a problem-focused and user-centred approach to explore, understand and discuss various societal phenomena and matters. Her earlier research was very much focused on the B2B domain, where she investigated cross-cultural business relationships, with a particular focus on discussing how cultural-specific factors, such as the Chinese notion of guanxi, affect international business relationships and collaborations, especially in Anglo-Chinese B2B relationships. Her research findings help Western and Chinese firms reduce conflict, increase trust, and improve their relationship performance. Her interest in understanding how culture affects human behaviour and interactions is not restricted to the B2B field but has also moved into the B2C field over the past decade. She explores acculturation amongst travelling consumers. These include sojourners, migrants, international students, as well as tourists. Dorothy studies their consumption of food and social media in relation to their cultural identities and their relationships with the host society. Her willingness to support colleagues with various projects and collaborate across different disciplines means that her publications are wide-ranging, tapping into areas from marketing, management, green supply chain, and communications, to the more discipline-specific journals in food and health as well as tourism. Over the years, she has developed a strong will to support responsible consumption and the value of equality, diversity and inclusion, with a particular focus on 1) creating an age-friendly society, 3) preventing migrants from becoming marginalised citizens, and 3) promoting Wales as a global tourist destination. Dorothy applies an interactive learning and teaching approach during her lectures and seminars to better engage students with the knowledge. Using team-based learning, she encourages students to discuss their ideas and examples with her as well as with their peers so that together they can co-create a positive learning experience. This academic year (2022/23), I will be teaching the MBA Principles of Marketing module (MB5538). In this module, MBA students have the opportunity to work with a real business, develop and present their marketing plan to the business and receive direct feedback from the business.
Dr Hannah Lowe Dr Hannah Lowe
Email Dr Hannah Lowe Reader in Creative Writing
Dr Hannah Lowe is a Reader in Creative Writing. She is a poet and memoirist, whose work lies between creative writing, memory studies and postcolonial studies. Her completed her AHRC funded PhD in Creative Writing at Newcastle, using historical research to narrate the 1947 journey of the SS Ormonde, the immigrant ship predating Windrush. Broadly her writing explores British multicultural society and its links to the Caribbean and China. Recent practice-based research has focused on Chinese arrival and settlement in the UK. Dr Lowe is the author of several collections of poetry and a family memoir and the former poet-in-residence at Keats House, London. In 2021, she won both the Costa Poetry Award and the Costa Book Award for her collection The Kids. She is the 2024 recipient of the Eccles Centre-Hay Festival Writers Award for her work in progress, The Woman in The Chinese Collar. She is also a founding member for the Chinese-Caribbean Studies Network. Contemporary Poetry; Contemporary Life Writing; Narratives of Migration and Diaspora; Representations of Postwar Caribbean Arrival to Britain The Creative Process; World Literature; Contemporary Poetry; Life Writing I supervise PhD students working in the field of Life Writing and Poetry.
Professor Kate Hoskins Professor Kate Hoskins
Email Professor Kate Hoskins Professor of Education
Kate is a Professor in Education with a focus on policy. Her research interests rest on the intersections between education and social policy, identity and inequalities in relation to early years, further and higher education. Her recent funded project with Professor Alice Bradbury examined the role of nursery schools in reducing the impact of socio-economic disadvantage in the early years sector. The findings confirm these settings are working in a hostile policy context and yet to the families they support, they are a frontline service, compensating for growing gaps in social welfare in the UK. She has published on inequalities in ECEC, with a focus on the role of policy in exacerbating these. Kate's most recent research on social mobility with Professor Bernard Barker examines the role of the family in intra and inter-generational social movement. They take a unique genealogical approach to researching social mobility, using a university chemistry department as a case study to explore participants’ motives for pursuing a STEM undergraduate degree and the influences that have shaped them. Kate has recently completed a British Academy funded research project with Professor Marie-Pierre Moreau and Dr Ellen McHugh to examine the precarious transitions undertaken by doctoral researchers negotiating the shift to an academic post. Education policy, early years, social mobility, identities, inequalities and social justice. My expertise lies in three areas of research: a) comparative social and education policy, b) equalities and c) social justice. I am particularly interested in the intersection of these areas in early years settings, further and higher education. In a number of projects with Early Years practitioners I have explored their constructions and perceptions of their professional identities with a focus on their education pathways and training experiences. Projects funded by the Froebel Trust have involved life history interviews with Early Years Teachers. This work has provided policy recommendations for the early years sector with a focus on improving social justice and addressing equality issues for women working with young children who are a marginalized group. I have a long-standing interest (theoretically and empirically) with critical, comparative social and education policy analysis that started when I was a member of the ‘Policy enactments in the secondary school’ (RES-062-23-1484) ESRC project (Ball and Maguire) for four years. This policy study compared the teaching and enactment of mathematics, science and English as well as behaviour and personalisation in four secondary schools, analysing the difference in enactments in each school. We spent a great deal of time working from the data to construct a theoretically robust account of policy enactment, which I have subsequently exported to my own projects on social mobility and early years. My scholarship on social mobility policy has culminated in analysis of school-based policies in England aimed at improving intragenerational progression. My work has provided methodological innovation through advancing a genealogical, qualitative approach to examine individual, group and family employment trajectories, and making sense of these in terms of stratified occupations over time and across generations. My publications in this area combine and connect arguments for social mobility within a critical comparative policy analysis frame that recognises the differences between local, regional and national labour markets. I convene and teach a year 3 BA Education module 'Growing up in 21st Century Britain' and a year 1 study block 'Education and Society'. I supervise BA and MA Education students on a range of topics related to education studies. I teach on the EdDoc programme and contribute sessions on, for example, policy analysis and policy report writing. I supervise PhD students on topics including education policy analysis, identities, inequalities and higher education.
Dr Kate Houlden Dr Kate Houlden
Email Dr Kate Houlden Senior Lecturer in English Literature
Kate's research focuses on the intersections between queer studies, materialist feminism and world-literature. She is currently writing a monograph, Female Migrant Domestic Workers in Post-Millennial Global Fiction for the Palgrave series, New Comparisons in World Literature. With Sharae Deckard, she has a special issue in Feminist Theory on 'Social Reproduction Feminism and World-Culture’ (2024), including an essay on the gendered precarity of neoliberalisation as seen in the work of Pat Barker and Mike McCormack. She also has a chapter due out on 'Commodifying Care: Migrant Literature and Materialist Feminism' in Commodities and Literature (CUP; 2024) Kate is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has over a decade of teaching experience across UK Higher Education, having obtained her AHRC-funded PhD on the subject of sexuality in Caribbean literature from Queen Mary, University of London in 2010. She has previously held permanent lectureships at Anglia Ruskin and Liverpool John Moores Universities, and has also taught at the University of Surrey and Queen Mary University of London. Goes by she/her pronouns. Currently Interim Director of Equality & Diversity for Arts and Humanities. Kate's next book analyses a range of post-millennial fiction in order to demonstrate how the capitalist world-system is structurally reliant on gendered, sexual and narrative compliance with normative understandings of (re)productivity. It covers a range of texts from Asia, the Middle East, America, Britain and the African continent, spanning 2000-present, a period when the fault lines of global capitalism have become increasingly apparent. Countering the prolific and often politically neutered use of the term neoliberalism, this book’s selected novels and short stories illustrate forcefully, and in specific detail, how the exploitation and control of women and LGBTQI+ individuals’ social reproductive labour – the daily work of sustaining and creating the emotional and physical needs of life outside of that which capital is willing to pay for – has been at the heart of the neoliberal juncture. Although the monograph makes clear the ways in which gendered non-conformity and queerness have variously been contained, harnessed, or made tragic in the service of maintaining the next generation of labour power, it also outlines the radical and dissenting energies emerging from the terrain of social reproduction. Consequently, Female Migrant Domestic Workers in Post-Millennial Global Fiction makes a critical intervention in discussions of women’s work within contemporary culture at precisely the moment when rising inequality, looming environmental catastrophe and the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have brought questions of gendered and sexualised labour dramatically to the fore. To make its case, Female Migrant Domestic Workers in Post-Millennial Global Fiction focuses on migrant female domestic workers – queer(ed) cleaners and nannies – those tens of millions of economically enforced labourers from peripheral nations who have left their homes, travelling within or across borders, to conduct caring duties elsewhere. Appearing with surprising fictive frequency, minimal scholarship has analysed the spate of contemporary texts featuring such women, whom Benita Parry chides postcolonial critics for ‘forgetting’ in their rush to celebrate diaspora (2004: 73). These workers’ precarious positionality provides ample illustration of broader gendered and sexual trends, including the way that labour has been ‘globalized and feminized’ (Lewis 2016: 89). In fact, some researchers have gone so far as to link the global voyaging of domestic workers to the ‘revival’ of interest in the very concept of social reproduction (Rosen and Newberry 2018: 120). Certainly, their habitation of customarily feminised roles, combined with a presence in allegedly private, familial space, renders visible the crisis of care underpinning contemporary capitalism (Fraser July-August 2016). Moreover, the challenges faced by migrant women in conforming to normative sexual and domestic codes, including frequent separation from their own children and difficulties in cohabiting with a partner or maintaining a conventional love life, amplify ‘the subversive potential of domestic labor struggles’ (Bergeron 2015: 1). The book’s global focus also allows for an accounting of racialised capitalism in relation to social reproductive labour for, as Zhivka Valiavicharska cautions, home, family, domestic and care work have ‘acquired different political meanings and social value in communities surviving slavery, racist oppression and violence, and various regimes of racial and social control’ (2020: npag). In short, Female Migrant Domestic Workers in Post-Millennial Global Fiction investigates the cultural representation of how migrant maids are made (and how they attempt to remake themselves) at the nexus of global capitalism’s gendered, sexual and racialised ideologies. Despite the specificities of their narratives, my chosen texts nevertheless reveal the fault lines in understanding all women’s work World Literature Queer Theory Materialist Feminism Contemporary Fiction Caribbean Literature Postcolonial Writing Kate has been a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2018. At Brunel, she has set up the module EN2611 21st Century Fictions of Global Inequality, as well as being Module Lead for EN1604/5 World Literature, and EN2610 Contemporary British and Irish Fiction. She also supervises final year undergraduate and MA dissertations. She has previously been nomated for and/or won student-led awards for 'Excellent Teaching', 'Excellent Module', 'Outstanding Personal Tutor' and 'Inclusive Lecturer'.
Dr Katerina Paramana Dr Katerina Paramana
Email Dr Katerina Paramana Senior Lecturer in Theatre
Katerina Paramana (Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor) is an artist-scholar, Research Lead for Theatre, PGR Director for the CBASS Global Lives Research Centre, Lead of the CBASS Performance, Cultures and Politics Research Group, and Lead of the Arts and Humanities Department Research Peer-Mentoring Scheme. Her performance work draws on theatre, the visuals arts, and dance and takes the form of performance, installation-, and lecture-performance. Through its consideration of the relationship between image, body, time, context, and the encounter with the spectator, her work explores the political, philosophical, social, and ethical dimensions and potentials of performance. It has been presented in theatres, studios, and galleries in the UK, US, and Europe, in venues such as Gasworks Gallery, The White Building, ]performance s p a c e [, Laban Theatre, The Place, and Toynbee Studios in London; the Institute of Design at Stanford University; the Kultuhuset in Stockholm; Galeria Boavista in Lisbon; and the Michael Cacoyannis Theatre in Athens. Katerina has also collaborated as a performer with various companies and artists in the UK and the US (e.g. Tino Sehgal, Ivana Müller, The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein, Bojana Cvejic and Christine De Smedt, Janez Janša, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Nejla Yatkin, Deviated Theatre, Lea Anderson, Simon Vincenzi, and Risa Jaroslow). She has performed at venues including the Barbican Theatre, National Theatre Studio, Tate Modern, Southbank Centre, Laban Theatre, and Siobhan Davies Studios in London; the Michael Cacoyannis Theatre and Duncan Dance Research Centre in Athens; the Kennedy Centre, Kogod Theatre, Greenberg Theatre, Kay Theatre, GALA Theatre at Tivoli Square, Dance Place, and the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C.; the Chicago Cultural Centre and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Centre in Chicago; and the Lincoln Centre in NYC. In broad terms, Katerina's interdisciplinary research is concerned with the socio-political and ethical dimensions of contemporary performance. It brings into conversation performance, political economy, critical theory, continental philosophy, and cultural and social theory. Her current research focuses on the relationship between performance and political economy. In 2022 - 2023 she curated and organised the research seminar series 'Performance and Political Economy: Bodies, Politics, and Well-Being in the 21st Century', for which she received a Research Seminar Series Award from Brunel University (2022). In 2023, Katerina was nominated and shortlisted for a Research Impact Award. In 2021, she received the 'BRIL' Research Award ('Brunel Research Interdisciplinary Lab') for an interdisciplinary collaborative project with Brunel colleagues, while in 2019 she was awarded the research ‘BRIEF Award’ (‘BRUNEL RESEARCH INITIATIVE AND ENTERPRISE FUND’) for her research. Her monograph is forthcoming with Routledge (2024). Her book Performance, Dance and Political Economy: Bodies at the End of the World (2021, Paramana and Gonzalez eds.) was published with Bloomsbury Academic, while the volume Art and Dance in Dialogue: Body, Space, Object (2020, Whatley, Sarah, Racz, Imogen, Paramana, Katerina, and Crawley, Marie-Louise eds.) was published with Palgrave Macmillan. Her research has also been published with refereed academic journals including Performance Research, Contemporary Theatre Review, GPS: Global Performance Studies, and Dance Research. She was an Associate Researcher with Performance Matters, an AHRC-funded creative research project and collaboration between University of Roehampton, London, Goldsmiths, University of London, and the Live Art Development Agency, investigating the cultural value of performance (directed by Adrian Heathfield, Gavin Butt, and Lois Keidan). Katerina also worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University, and from 2015-2018 she was a Participating Artist of Sadler’s Wells Summer University, which was led by Jonathan Burrows and Eva Martinez. Katerina is editor of the journal section 'Political Economy and the Arts', the new section she has developed for Lateral, the refereed journal of the Cultural Studies Association (2022 - present). She is co-founder of the interdisciplinary Book Series Dance in Dialogue (Bloomsbury Academic), which she co-edited for its first three years (2018 - 2021), publishing its first four books. She is an assessor on the techne Peer Review College (AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership) and is on the Editorial Board of Body, Space, & Technology journal. She has also served on the Board of Directors of Performance Studies International (PSi) and on the Executive Committee of the Society for Dance Research, and currently serves on Performance Studies International (PSi's) Advisory Committee on Antiracism and Anticolonialism. Katerina has supervised and examined BA, MA, and PhD dissertations (practice-based, practice-as-research, and fully-written) and has taught theory and practice across live art, theatre, performance, and dance at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Prior to Brunel she taught, among others, at Birkbeck, University of London, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and University of Roehampton, London. She is Fellow of the Higher Education Adacemy (FHEA). She holds a PhD in Theatre and Performance from University of Roehampton, London, an MA in Choreography from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, a BA in Theatre, and a BA in Dance from University of Maryland, College Park (US). Her PhD studies were funded by the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation. In broad terms, Katerina's interdisciplinary research is concerned with the socio-political and ethical dimensions of contemporary performance. It brings into conversation performance, political economy, critical theory, continental philosophy, and cultural and social theory. Her current research focuses on the relationship between performance and political economy. In 2022 - 2023 she curated and organised the research seminar series 'Performance and Political Economy: Bodies, Politics, and Well-Being in the 21st Century', for which she received a Research Seminar Series Award from Brunel University (2022). In 2021, Katerina received the 'BRIL' Research Award ('Brunel Research Interdisciplinary Lab') for an interdisciplinary collaborative project with Brunel colleagues, while in 2019 she was awarded the research ‘BRIEF Award’ (‘BRUNEL RESEARCH INITIATIVE AND ENTERPRISE FUND’) for her research. Her monograph is forthcoming with Routledge (2023). Her book Performance, Dance and Political Economy: Bodies at the End of the World (2021, Paramana and Gonzalez eds.) was published with Bloomsbury Academic, while the volume Art and Dance in Dialogue: Body, Space, Object (2020, Whatley, Sarah, Racz, Imogen, Paramana, Katerina, and Crawley, Marie-Louise eds.) was published with Palgrave Macmillan. Her research has also been published with refereed academic journals including Performance Research, Contemporary Theatre Review, GPS: Global Performance Studies, and Dance Research. She was an Associate Researcher with Performance Matters, an AHRC-funded creative research project and collaboration between University of Roehampton, London, Goldsmiths, University of London, and the Live Art Development Agency, investigating the cultural value of performance (directed by Adrian Heathfield, Gavin Butt, and Lois Keidan). Katerina also worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University, and from 2015-2018 she was a Participating Artist of Sadler’s Wells Summer University, which was led by Jonathan Burrows and Eva Martinez. Katerina is editor of the journal section 'Political Economy and the Arts', the new section she has developed for Lateral, the refereed journal of the Cultural Studies Association (2022 - present). She is co-founder of the Interdisciplinary Book Series Dance in Dialogue (Bloomsbury Academic), which she co-edited for its first three years (2018 - 2021), publishing its first four books. She is on the techne Peer Review College (AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership) and on the Editorial Board of Body, Space, & Technology journal, and has served on the Board of Directors of Performance Studies International (PSi) and on the Executive Committee of the Society for Dance Research. PUBLICATIONS (for full texts visit my Academia.edu page) Book Series Co-founder of the Interdisciplinary Book Series Dance in Dialogue; series co-editor 2018-2021. Bloomsbury Academic. Books (forthcoming) Paramana, Katerina. 'Contemporary Performance and Political Economy: Oikonomia as a new ethico-political paradigm'. Routledge. 2021. Paramana, Katerina and Gonzalez, Anita (eds.). Performance, Dance and Political Economy: Bodies at the End of the World. Bloomsbury Academic. 2020. Whatley, Sarah, Racz, Imogen, Paramana, Katerina, and Crawley, Marie-Louise (Eds.). Art and Dance in Dialogue: Body, Space, Object. Palgrave Macmillan. Refereed Journal Publications 2023 (in press). Paramana, K. 'The Oscillation of Contemporary Bodies Between Biopolitics and Necropolitics: Tania Bruguera’s Wrestling with Power Structures'. Filozofski Vestnik. 2019. ‘The Animation of Contemporary Subjectivity in Tino Sehgal’s Ann Lee’, Performance Research 24(6), 114-121. 2017. ‘The Contemporary Dance Economy: Problems and Potentials in the Contemporary Neoliberal Moment’, Special issue ‘Dancing Economies: Currency, Value and Labour’, Dance Research, 35(1), 75–95. (Full text available at my Academia.edu) 2017. ‘The PSi Manifesto Lexicon – An Online Discursive Platform’, GPS: Global Performance Studies, 1(1). Konstantina, Georgelou, Hildebrandt, Antje and Paramana, Katerina. (Full text available at my Academia.edu) 2015. ‘Re-turning to The Show’, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 20(5), 116-124. (Full text available at my Academia.edu) 2015. Text contribution to the ‘Acts of Voting: a Lexicon’, curated by Philip Hager & Marilena Zaroulia, Contemporary Theatre Review Interventions (Online), 25(2) (May 2015). 2014. ‘On Resistance through Ruptures and the Rupture of Resistances in Tino Sehgal’s These Associations’, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 19(6), 81-89. (Full text available at my Academia.edu) 2014. (Editorial) ‘Solidarity and/in Performance: Rethinking Definitions & Exploring Potentialities’ activate e-journal, 3(1). (Full text available at my Academia.edu) 2011. ‘Muddle, muddle toil and trouble: Disorder and potentiality’, activate e-journal, 1(1). Book Chapters 2021. Paramana, Katerina. ‘Performance, Dance and Political Economy: A Provocation'. In Performance, Dance and Political Economy: Bodies at the End of the World. Paramana, K. and Gonzalez, A. (Eds.) Bloomsbury Academic. 2021. Paramana, Katerina and Gonzalez, Anita. ‘Opening Thoughts and Introductions’. In Performance, Dance and Political Economy: Bodies at the End of the World. Paramana, K. and Gonzalez, A. (Eds.) Bloomsbury Academic. 2021. Paramana, Katerina, Gonzalez, Anita, Power, Nina, Blanco-Borelli, Melissa, Loizidou, Elena, Johnson-Small, Jamila, Seregina, Usva, Hemsley, Alexandrina, and Arthur, Marc. ‘In Conversation: Performance, Dance and Political Economy’. In Performance, Dance and Political Economy: Bodies at the End of the World. Paramana, K. and Gonzalez, A. (Eds.) Bloomsbury Academic. 2020. Crawley, Marie-Louise, Paramana, Katerina, Racz, Imogen and Whatley, Sarah . ‘Introduction’, in Whatley, S., Racz, I., Paramana, K., and Crawley, M. (Eds.) Art and Dance in Dialogue: Body, Space, Object. Palgrave Macmillan. Published Practice-Based Outputs (DVDs available at the British Library and the Live Art Development Agency’s Study Room): Talking with Strangers: What is Violence?, Performance Matters – Potentials of Performance, (2012) The White Building, London ( Martyro, Performance Matters – Trashing Performance –Trash Salon: How to do things with waste?, (2011) Toynbee Studios, London ( Creative Text Online Publications 2013. (Re)definition of the term ‘solidarity’. PSi Manifesto Lexicon. Gigi Argyropoulou, Konstantina Georgelou, Efrosini Protopapa, Danae Theodoridou and Steriani Tsintziloni (eds.). 2012. (Re)definitions of the terms ‘reading’, ‘co-authoring’ and ‘witness’. PSi Manifesto Lexicon. Gigi Argyropoulou, Konstantina Georgelou, Efrosini Protopapa, Danae Theodoridou and Steriani Tsintziloni (eds.). Reviews 2011.‘Review – Thinking Through Dance: The Philosophy of Dance Performance and Practices Conference’, Society for Dance Research Newsletter, 50. Co-authored with Antje Hildebrandt. RECENT AWARDS & FUNDING (2022-2026) Arts & Humanities Research Council, Techne AHRC DTP - Studentship - Tejas Rawal (2023) Nominated and shortlisted for a Research Impact Award, Brunel University London (2022-23) Research Seminar Series Award (Brunel Univ.) for 'Performance and Political Economy: Bodies, Politics, and Well-Being in the 21st Century'. (2021-22) 'BRIL' Research Award ('Brunel Research Interdisciplinary Lab') for the interdisciplinary collaborative project 'The Social, Ecological, Political, and Cultural Implications of Extinction'. (2019-20) Research ‘BRIEF Award’ (‘BRUNEL RESEARCH INITIATIVE AND ENTERPRISE FUND’) 2019-20, Brunel University London (Research Leave 2019-20). (2017) British Society of Aesthetics– Grant for the organisation of the conference ‘Dialogues on Dance, Philosophy, and Performance in the Contemporary Neoliberal Moment’ at Coventry University. Research Projects & Related Activities (2022-23) Curated and organised the Research Seminar Series 'Performance and Political Economy: Bodies, Politics, and Well-Being in the 21st Century'. (2021-22) Co-I, BRIL ('Brunel Research Interdisciplinary Lab') for the interdisciplinary collaborative project 'The Social, Ecological, Political, and Cultural Implications of Extinction'. (2019-20) Principal Investigator, ‘BRIEF Award' Project (‘BRUNEL RESEARCH INITIATIVE AND ENTERPRISE FUND’) 2019-20, Brunel University London. (2015-18) Participating Artist, Sadler’s Wells Summer University. Directed by Jonathan Burrows in collaboration with Eva Martinez, Sadler’s Wells, London. (2015) Participating Artist, Performing Arts Forum (PAF) with Jonathan Burrows, Jan Ritsema, Mårten Spångberg, and Bojana Cvejic. Siobhan Davies Studios, London. (2010-13) Associate Researcher with Performance Matters, an AHRC-funded Programme. A three-year creative research project and collaboration between University of Roehampton, London, Goldsmiths, University of London and the Live Arts Development Agency investigating the cultural value of performance. Directed by Professor Adrian Heathfield, Dr Gavin Butt and Lois Keidan. Board Memberships & Assessment Panels (2020-present) PSi Advisory Committee on Antiracism and Anticolonialism (2018-present) techne AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership Peer Review College – Assessment Panel Member, Performing Arts Subject Group. (2018-present) Editorial Board, Body, Space & Technology (BST) Journal (2016-2019) Board of Directors, Performance Studies International (PSi) (2016-2018) Executive Committee, Society for Dance Research (SDR) Peer-Reviewer Rowman & Littlefield Press Arts Journal (ISSN 2076-0752) Bloomsbury Academic Routledge GPS: Global Performance Studies journal Dance Research Journal Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism and GPS: Global Performance Studies journal Joint issue Performing Ethos: An International Journal of Ethics in Theatre and Performance journal Airea, Arts and Interdisciplinary Research Journal, Edinburgh College of Art Body, Space & Technology (BST) Journal Editorial Roles (2022-present) Editor, 'Political Economy and the Arts', the new section of Lateral, the refereed journal of the Cultural Studies Association. (2018-2021) Book Series Editor, Interdisciplinary Book Series Dance in Dialogue, Bloomsbury Academic. (2018-present) Editorial Board, Body, Space & Technology (BST) journal. (2016-2019) General Editor, Performance Studies International, PSi Manifesto Lexicon. (2015-16) Review Editor, Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices (2013-14) Guest Editor, ‘Solidarity and/in Performance: Rethinking Definitions & Exploring Potentialities’ activate e-journal, 3(1). (2010-13) Editorial Committee Member, activate e-journal. Event Organisation (2022-23) Curated and organised the Research Seminar Series 'Performance and Political Economy: Bodies, Politics, and Well-Being in the 21st Century'. (2022) Co-organiser of the international conference 'Extinction: Implications from the Microbial to the Planetary (ExIMP). (2017) Co-organiser of the Conference ‘Dialogues on Dance, Philosophy, and Performance in the Contemporary Neoliberal Moment’, Coventry University. (2016) Co-organizer of the Body, Space, Object Symposium, Coventry University. (2016) Working Group Convenor and Panel Chair, ‘The production of the Social in Contemporary Performance’, Body, Space, Object Symposium, Coventry University. (2013) Curation & organisation of the symposium ‘Rethinking Economies’, University of Roehampton, London. Co-curated and co-organised with Gigi Argyropoulou. Presentations by Professor Nicholas Ridout, Dr Sophie Nield, Dr Eve Katsouraki, and Tim Jeeves. Funded by Roehampton University’s Centre for Performance and Creative Exchange. (2011) Co-curator of the festival ‘Performing Text / Reading Performance’ (PANDEMIC), Bank Street Arts Gallery, Sheffield, U.K. Conferences & Symposia Presentations 2022 Invited Talk for the Brunel-wide Mentoring Network Launch. 2022 Invited Talk for the Organisation of Dance Professionals Symposium, Athens, Greece (SEXWXO). 2021 Invited Talk: invited by the Research Centre for the Humanities (RCH) and TWIXTlab (Athens, GR) to deliver talk on artistic research in dance titled ‘The Production of Knowledge through Dance Research Outside(?) the Academy’. 2022 (Paper) ‘The Subject Par Excellence of Contemporary Capitalism: Hungry for rest, stability, and emotional balance’. Performance Studies International (PSi) Conference. 2021 (Paper) ‘Tino Sehgal’s Ann Lee: How to Set Our Souls Back in Motion.’ TaPRA Conference. Online & Co - Hosted by Liverpool Hope University. Bodies and Performance Working Group. 2021 (Paper) Performance Studies International (PSi#25) Conference, Rijeka, Croatia. Covid-19 related conference cancellation. 2020 (Paper) Performance Studies International (PSi#25) Conference, Rijeka, Croatia. Covid-19 related conference postponement. 2019 (Paper) Performance Studies International (PSi#25) Conference, Calgary, Canada. 2019 (Paper) ‘To kill, to heal, to transform: Coming-in-between ideas, institutions, and practices’, Performance Philosophy Conference, University of Amsterdam, Theatre Studies. 2017 (Paper) ‘IDEA: THIS IS GOOD: On Neoliberal OverFlows and the Reconceptualization of Economy’, Brunel Theatre Research Seminar Series, London. 2017 (Paper) ‘IDEA: THIS IS GOOD: On Neoliberal OverFlows and the Reconceptualization of Economy’, PSi#23 (Performance Studies International) Conference, Hamburg, Germany. 2017 (Paper) ‘The Contemporary Dance Economy: Problems and Potentials in the Current Neoliberal Moment’ Dance Fields: Staking a Claim for Dance Studies in the 21stCentury, University of Roehampton, London. 2016 (Paper) ‘On the production of the social in contemporary performance practices’. Society for European Philosophy (SEP/FEP), London, UK. 2016 (Paper) ‘Re-turning to The Show: Repetition and the Construction of Spaces of Decision, Affect and Creative Possibility’, REPETITION/S: Performance and Philosophy in Ljubljana, Slovenia. 2016 (Paper) ‘On the Production of the Social in the Contemporary Moment: Performance, Neoliberalism and Resistance’, GRiT, Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre, Birkbeck, University of London. 2015 (Paper) Cut & Paste: Dance Advocacy in the Age of Austerity SDHS/CORD Conference, Athens, Greece. 2015 (Paper) Dancing Economies: Currency, Value and Labour Conference, Royal Holloway, University of London 2014 (Paper) IFTR World Congress: Theatre & Stratification, University of Warwick, UK. 2013 (Paper) New Visions On Dance Symposium (Society for Dance Research & Dance HE Middlesex) Middlesex University, London. 2013 Invited Plenary Talk and Workshop at ‘Generative Indirections’, Performance Studies International (PSi) Regional Cluster Conference, Portugal. 2013 ‘Talking about Economy/ies’, Performance Studies International (Psi#19) Conference, Stanford University, US. Co-created with Gigi Argyropoulou. 2013 (Paper) What is Performance philosophy? Staging a New Field Conference, University of Surrey, UK. Panel title: Ethics & Aesthetics in Performance Art: From Marina Abramovic to Tino Sehgal. 2012 (Installation-Performance)’ Talking with Strangers: What is Violence?’, Potentials of Performance, Performance Matters, London. 2012 (Paper) PSi #18 (Performance Studies International) Conference, Leeds, U.K. June 2012 (Paper) Communication in Context Conference, University of Roehampton, London. 2011 Performance Studies International (PSi) Conference – Athens Cluster, Athens, Greece.Presentations:– ‘Synchronicity in Performance’– ‘Manifesto Lexicon’ 2011 (Performance) Martyro, Performance Matters Symposium, Toynbee Studios, London, U.K. 2011 (Paper) ‘Failing Narratives, Failing Systems: Failure as Necessity in Performanceand Society’, 3rd Annual PhD Student Conference, University of Wolverhampton, U.K. 2011 (Lecture-Performance) Muddle, muddle toil and trouble: Disorder and potentiality – A Lecture- Performance.‘Communi(cati)on of Crisis Symposium’, Nafpaktos, Greece. Organised by the Institute for Live Arts Research under the auspices of Athens University and Minicipality of Nafpaktos. 2011 (Performance) Metrology, Making & Unmaking Text Across Performance Practices and Theories Conference, Funded by Beyond Text, an AHRC Programme,Centre for Creative Collaboration, London, U.K. PERFORMANCE CREATION Selected Works (In preparation) Martyro Exploded (working title). June 2015 Now What?, Michael Cacoyannis Theatre, Athens, Greece. Co-created with Elena Koukoli. Performed by Stella Dimitrakopoulou, Elena Koukoli, and Katerina Paramana. 23 April – 9 May 2014 IDEA: THIS IS GOOD, Gasworks Gallery, London.(Part of the archive of destruction by Pedro Lagoa). 1 November 2013 Video Performances co-created with Kathleya Afanador, Antje Hildebrandt, Elena Koukoli, and Ligia Zuccarello Rizzo (as part of Toothache Duets, by Eirini Kartsaki and Louise Douse) ]performance s p a c e [, London. 27 June 2013 Talking about Economy/ies, Performance Studies International (PSi#19),Studio 2, Building 550, Stanford University, US.Co-created with Gigi Argyropoulou. 14 & 15 December 2012 Talking with Strangers: What is Violence?, Galeria Boavista, Lisbon, Portugal. 26 & 27 October 2012 Talking with Strangers: What is Violence?, Potentials of Performance, part of Performance Matters, The White Building, London.– November 2011 Muddle, muddle toil and trouble: Disorder and potentiality – A Lecture- Performance. Part of PANDEMIC, Bank Street Arts, Sheffield, U.K.Performed by Stella Dimitrakopoulou, Antje Hildebrandt, Eirini Kartsaki, and Katerina Paramana. October 2011 Martyro, Trash Salon, Performance Matters Symposium, Toynbee Studios, London.Performed by Katerina Paramana. August 2011 Metrology, Stockholm Fringe Fest 2011, Kultuhuset, Stockholm.Performed by Antje Hildebrandt and Katerina Paramana. June 2011 Muddle, muddle toil and trouble: Disorder and potentiality – A Lecture- Performance.Jubilee Building, University of Roehampton, London.Performed by Antje Hildebrandt, Eirini Kartsaki, Elena Koukoli, and Katerina Paramana. June 2011 Muddle, muddle toil and trouble: Disorder and potentiality – A Lecture- Performance.‘Communi(cati)on of Crisis’ Symposium, Nafpaktos, Greece. Organised by the Institute for Live Arts Research under the auspices of Athens University and Municipality of Nafpaktos.Performed by Elena Koukoli, Nana Sachini, Eirini Kartsaki, and Katerina Paramana. February 2011 Metrology, Jubilee Theatre, University of Roehampton, London.Performed by Antje Hildebrandt and Stella Dimitrakopoulou. January 2011 Metrology, C4CC (Centre for Creative Collaboration), LondonPart of Making & UnmakingText Across Performance Practices and Theories. Funded by Beyond Text, an AHRC ProgrammePerformed by Antje Hildebrandt and Stella Dimitrakopoulou. January 2011 Metrology, Part of Resolution!, The Robin Howard Dance Theatre,The Place, London.Performed by Antje Hildebrandt and Stella Dimitrakopoulou. May 2010 E Pulvere Lux Et Vis, 125 Magazine, Photoshoot Choreographer, Sept. 2010 Art Issue (16), p. 212-219, London. Photography Dan Swallow, Art Director Martin Yates.( October 2009 Tea Party, Deptford X Festival, London. Co-created and performed with Michelle Lynch, Antje Hildebrandt, and Laura Blackley. In collaboration with Artmongers. June 2009 The Adult Waltz Starving Loretta Home, Studio Theatre, Laban, London. April 2009 Subjectile, Co-created and performed with Kathleya Afanador, Laban, London. Concept and Design Alex Rainford-Roberts. January 2009 Three, Studio Theatre, Laban, London. May 2006 ‘Aint’I a Woman’, Co-created with Stacy Wilson, Dance Theatre, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Centre, MD, US. April 2006 Hang Pictures on the Air, Dance Theatre, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Centre, MD, US. Performed by Katerina Paramana. December 2006 Distance, Laboratory Theatre, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Centre, MD, US. December 2005 From the Real to the Surreal, Dance Theatre, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Centre, MD, US. Performed by Yoko Feinman and JR Russ. Contemporary: Performance, Theatre, Choreography/Post-Dance Live Art Political Economy Performance, Critical, Political, Social, and Cultural Theory Ethics and Social Justice Spectatorship and Participation Affect and Collectivity Biopolitics and Neoliberalism Continental Philosophy Practice-as-Research Teaching Areas: Theory and practice across contemporary theatre, performance, live art, and dance Continental Philosophy Critical theory Katerina has taught workshops, seminars, and lectures on theatre, performance, live art, and dance on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. She has also supervised and examined BA, MA, and PhD dissertations and has delivered workshops for the techne AHRC Doctoral Training Programme. Prior to Brunel she taught, among others, at Birkbeck, University of London, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and University of Roehampton, London. She is Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).
Dr Louise Forde Dr Louise Forde
Email Dr Louise Forde Senior Lecturer in Law
Louise joined Brunel Law School in September 2020. Her research interests lie primarily in the areas of youth justice and children's rights law. Louise holds a PhD in Law from University College Cork, awarded in 2018. During the course of her PhD, she was awarded a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship from the Irish Research Council, and the President James Slattery Prize in Law from the School of Law in UCC, for her research entitled “’Welfare’ and ‘justice’ in Irish youth justice: A Children’s Rights Analysis of Diverse Approaches to Youth Justice”. She also holds an LLM (Research), LLM (Criminal Justice), and BCL from the School of Law, UCC, and has completed a Higher Diploma in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Between 2018-2020, Louise was a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Children’s Rights and Family Law in the School of Law, UCC, where she also lectured on modules including Child Law, International Human Rights Law and Juvenile Justice. She was a visiting lecturer in Leiden Law School in 2019. She has been published in Youth Justice: An International Journal, and has authored reports for bodies such as Save the Children, the Irish Penal Reform Trust, and other governmental and non-governmental bodies. She recently contributed to the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of their Liberty. She was appointed to the editorial board of Youth Justice: An International Journal in 2019. Louise's primary research interests lie in the area of youth justice and international children's rights law. She is particularly interested in the ways in which international children's rights principles can be used to develop domestic law and policy. She has a keen interest in children's participation, and is interested in conducting research that includes participatory methods with children and which values the contribution that can be made by listening to children's voices and experiences. Youth Justice International children's rights law Implementation of international children's rights principles in domestic law Children's participation Evidence Law Sentencing & Penology Criminal Law Children and the Law
Professor Maria Tsouroufli Professor Maria Tsouroufli
Email Professor Maria Tsouroufli Professor in Education
I am Professor of Education at the College of Business, Arts and Social Sciences. Previously I worked as Reader in Women and Gender at the University of Wolverhampton. My research is concerned with social justice with a particular focus on gender inequalities in education and professions. I am a transnational feminist academic and my applied social research aims to advance theorizations of gender and gender equality in the Global South. My intersectional study of identities is underpinned by post-structuralist approaches and is centred around 4 themes with violence as a cross-cutting theme: educational policy inlcuding medical educational policy, decolonization of international partnerships; emotionality of difference and disembodiment of EDI discourses in HE; internationalization and academic migration; and critiques of white mainstream feminism. My research and teaching interests are in gender, intersectionality, identities and inequalities, particularly in relation to teacher, academic and medical professionals. My formation, research and employment has spanned health and medical sociology, organisation studies, education and gender and women's studies. My international and interdisciplinary research has been informed mainly by feminist post-structuralist approaches to education and medical education policy, power and resistance. I have led and have been involved in internally and externally funded research projects conducted in Britain, Europe and Australia employing a variety of methodologies (ethnography, narratology) and methods (quantitative/qualitative and mixed-method) on a wider range of equality and diversity issues. Social Justice with a focus on gender inequalities in education and professions: International and interdisciplinary perspectives, Gender-based violence in schools and on campus, Women in STEMM careers, Athena Swan, Widening Participation, Professional and Student Identities: Intersectional approaches, Narratology, Feminist Post-Structuralist Research Approaches EdD/PhD teaching and research supervision MA teaching, marking, and research supervision BA dissertation supervision and marking
Professor Meredith Jones Professor Meredith Jones
Email Professor Meredith Jones Professor / Director of Research Institute - (ICS)
Professor Jones is Director of the pan-university Institute for Communities and Society. Meredith is a transdisciplinary scholar who works at the intersections of feminist theories of the body with media, gender, and cultural studies. She is particularly interested in popular culture, visuality, and embodiment, and has published widely in these areas. Her latest edited volume, Performing the Penis: Phalluses in 21st Century Cultures (with Evelyn Callahan) comprehensively introduces the emerging discipline of Penis Studies. She is currently working on a monograph about vulvas and on a yearbook about genital transformations in media and culture. Beautyscapes: Mapping Cosmetic Surgery Tourism (written with Ruth Holliday and David Bell) won the 2020 Foundation for Sociology of Health and Illness Prize. This book is based on extensive fieldwork carried out in Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Tunisia, Spain, and Czech Republic. It also comprises digital research into cosmetic surgery websites and cosmetic surgery communities on social media. Skintight: An Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery, Meredith's first monograph, is a widely-cited foundational text in studies of makeover culture, cosmetic surgery and feminist theories of the body. Her other books include a major collection of feminist writing about cosmetic surgery that she co-edited with philosopher Cressida Heyes, Cosmetic Surgery: A Feminist Primer. She often speaks publicly about social media, popular culture and feminism, and is an expert on the socio-cultural aspects of the Kardashians. She hosted a scholarly Kimposium! in 2015 and Kimposium! The Sequel was held in September 2021. Meredith is active in the creative industries and founded the Trunk series of books with artist and designer Suzanne Boccalatte, which includes curated collections of artworks and essays about Hair and Blood. Currently she is collaborating with Taylor & Francis Group to deliver a series of projects around new and innovative modes of publishing. The goal is to develop more digitally relevant, flexible, inclusive and faster ways of publishing for academics as well as community, industry, and NGO groups. Qualifications PhD in Cultural Studies, University of Western Sydney, 2006 BA Hons. in Women's Studies, 1st Class, University of Sydney, 1998 Meredith's work is in the broad fields of Feminist Theory, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, and Cultural Sociology. She has researched and written about cosmetic surgery and other body modifications for more than two decades. Her book Skintight: An Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery is a key text in feminist thinking about makeover culture, bodies, and media. In Sun, Sea, Sand and Silicone, an international ESRC funded research project that explored the phenomenon of Cosmetic Surgery Tourism, Meredith and a team of academics from Australia and the UK followed people from the UK, Australia and China who went to Thailand, Malaysia, Tunisia and South Korea seeking cosmetic surgery. The book based on this project, Beautyscapes: Mapping Cosmetic Surgery Tourism, won the 2020 Foundation for Sociology of Health and Illness Prize. Meredith is the editor of the Routledge series Gender, Bodies and Transformation. She welcomes proposals for the series. Animal/Human Studies, Body Modifications, especially Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery, Cultural Studies, Digital Studies, Embodiment, Fashion Theory, Feminist Theories of the Body, Gender Studies, Media Studies, Popular Culture, Trans Studies, Visual Studies
Professor Nick Hubble Professor Nick Hubble I am Professor of Modern and Contemporary English and Director of the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing (BCCW). Formerly, I have successfully filled many roles including Head of English and both Director of Research and Director of Teaching and Learning for Arts & Humanities at Brunel. I hold a BA in Philosophy and Literature (Essex), a PGCE in Secondary English (Sussex), an MA in Critical Theory (Sussex), a DPhil (on George Orwell and Mass-Observation) in English Literature (Sussex) and a PGCert in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (Brunel). I am an interdisciplinary researcher whose work combines the fields of Politics, History, Sociology, Cultural Studies and Literary Studies. My current reseach project is 'Self-reflexivity, Class Consciousness, Culture Wars, and Social Change in Britain' for which I have been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for 2023-24. I am the author of Mass Observation and Everyday Life: Culture, History, Theory (2006, second edition 2010) and The Proletarian Answer to the Modernist Question (2017). I am co-author (with Philip Tew) of Ageing, Narrative and Identity (2013). I am the co-editor (with Aris Mousoutzanis) of The Science Fiction Handbook (2013), (with Philip Tew) of London in Contemporary British Fiction (2016), (with Esther MacCallum-Stewart and Joseph Norman) of The Science Fiction of Iain M. Banks (2018), (with Ben Clarke) of Working-Class Writing: Theory and Practice (2018), and (with Jennie Taylor and Philip Tew) of Growing Old with the Welfare State (2019). I am one of the series editors (with Philip Tew and Leigh Wilson) of The Decades Series: British Fiction with Bloomsbury Academic, which covers 100 years of transformational change in the field of British fiction. I have co-edited seven of the ten volumes in this series: The 1970s (2014), The 1990s (2015), The 2000s (2015), The 1950s (2018), The 1930s (2021), The 2010s (forthcoming 2024), and The 1920s (forthcoming 2025). Mass-Observation Modern and Contemporary British Literature (1900 – ), especially working-class writing, proletarian literature, and fiction of the interwar years. ‘Social Humanities’ and Interdisciplinary Narrative Research Science Fiction and Fantasy I teach on EN2014 Modernism, EN2604 Contemporary British Fiction, EN2065 Genre Fictions and the MA in English. I have supervised PhD projects on topics such as the Culture novels of Iain M Banks and Transformations in Fantasy Fiction.
Dr Patricia Hobbs Dr Patricia Hobbs
Email Dr Patricia Hobbs Senior Lecturer in Public International Law
Patricia Hobbs is a Lecturer in Law at Brunel University. Before joining Brunel University, Patricia was Associate Lecturer/GTA at the University of Manchester, and before that she was a teaching assistant at Newcastle Law School. She was awarded a fully funded studentship by the University of Manchester to study for her PhD, successfully defended in 2012. Her doctoral thesis focused on the relationship between the Rome Statute and the principle of state sovereignty, with a particular emphasis on the Kenya situation and the crimes perpetrated following the 2008 elections. Her research and publications focus on the effectiveness of the International Criminal Court in dealing with the complexities arising from the prosecution of international crimes, from the immunity of a sitting President to fair trial procedures. Patricia has been a regular judge in the mooting competitions organised by the Brunel Law Society, and in 2014 she served as a judge in the UK national rounds of the Telders International Law Moot Court Competition. Patricia’s research interests lie in the areas of international criminal law, international human rights law, international public law and international humanitarian law. Her interest in international criminal justice and the never again narrative provide the platform for her research interests, although the reality of international law provides the underlying backdrop for the development and progression of her research. Patricia has a strong interest in evaluating the effectiveness of the International Criminal Court in light of the challenges and limitations posed by the principle of state sovereignty. Moreover, the relatively new criminal justice machinery, established by the Rome Statute regime, is also facing procedural challenges regarding rights of fair trial, an issue that is closely related to the Court’s legitimacy. This is the subject of her next article, ‘The right to fair trial and judicial economy at the International Criminal Court’. State sovereignty The Rome Statute and its implementation by domestic courts Compliance in international law (including rational choice theory) The right to a fair trial Judicial economy Immunity of state officials re: international crimes Jus ad bellum and jus in bello The Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) Gender-based crimes Jus cogens norms (in particular, torture) Undergraduate teaching Criminal Law (Module Convenor) Postgraduate teaching International Criminal Law (Module Convenor) International Humanitarian Law (Module Convenor) Public International Law
Dr Paul Moody Dr Paul Moody
Email Dr Paul Moody Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications
Paul is a Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications, with research interests in British cinema history, Hollywood and US cultural diplomacy, emerging digital media, and the horror film. He is also a digital media practitioner whose work has won awards at international festivals. Paul's most recent monograph, EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema (2018), develops the first historical analysis of the largest British film company of the 1970s, EMI Films. The book argues that EMI’s amorphous nature as a ‘transnational’ film company problematizes traditional approaches to the creation of cultural ‘canons’ and the definition of ‘national culture’, with one reviewer commenting that it makes a ‘very significant contribution not only to British cinema history but also to British cultural history in general’. Paul's work on the company’s output is an ongoing research interest and currently, he is developing a project with the British Film Institute on the career of EMI Films’ first Head of Production, Bryan Forbes, analysing his work as part of a wider examination of how polymathic artists can be interpreted by cultural historians. Paul's other current research interest focuses on the connections between Hollywood and the U.S. Department of State's global network of embassies. His work in this field has been published in Media, Culture and Society and the International Journal of Communication, and he is completing a monograph on this topic provisionally titled The US Embassy-Hollywood Complex. In this book, Paul employs archival records from the US State Department to question existing theories of globalization which present state sovereignty in decline vis-à-vis ‘globalizing’ media companies. He argues that instead, these examples show how the US government has supported Hollywood’s global economic interests using a variety of strategies and tactics, problematizing attempts to explain Hollywood’s cultural dominance solely as a product of its wide public appeal or as a result of laissez-faire economic policy. Paul' research interests include British cinema history, Hollywood and US cultural diplomacy, emerging digital media, and the horror film. British Cinema History: Paul's most recent monograph, EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema (2018), develops the first historical analysis of the largest British film company of the 1970s, EMI Films. This is part of an ongoing project into the history of EMI Films, which has also resulted in Paul editing a special issue of the Journal of British Cinema and Television on the company, and producing a video essay on Verity Lambert, EMI Film's last Head of Production. He is currently developing a project with the British Film Institute on the career of EMI Films’ first Head of Production, Bryan Forbes, analysing his work as part of a wider examination of how polymathic artists can be interpreted by cultural historians. Hollywood and US Cultural Diplomacy: Paul has published widely on the connections between Hollywood and the U.S. Department of State, in journals such as Media, Culture and Society and the International Journal of Communication. Currently, he is completing a monograph on this topic provisionally titled The US Embassy-Hollywood Complex. In this book, Paul employs archival records from the US State Department to question existing theories of globalization which present state sovereignty in decline vis-à-vis ‘globalizing’ media companies. Paul's interests in emerging digital media can be seen in his publications on 360° VR films and in work he is developing on the conections between the history of CGI and the 'deepfake'. His work on the horror film includes articles on the filmmaker David Cronenberg and work on early British horror for the BFI's Screenonline. British cinema history Hollywood and US cultural diplomacy Emerging digital media The horror film Paul's teaching experience includes a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses across the film and media disciplines, including modules which focus on digital media practice. He is the module leader for CO1600 Media Production I: Non-Fiction, in which students analyse and produce a range of digital media, including video essays and short documentary films. He also leads CO2601 Media Production II: Fiction, in which students are introduced to screenwriting and the production of a short fiction film. Paul also teaches on SO1700 Making Sense of Culture and Society: Issues I, in which his lectures focus on disruptive emerging digital media, including the phenomenon of the 'deepfake' and the ethics of online privacy. In additon to this, he has established several extra-curricular projects that involved students working with media industry figures on funded short films and pioneered the development of an online interactive module for undergraduates on the principles of fiction filmmaking. Paul supervises dissertation students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, and was part of the project team which led the development of a new practice pathway on the MSc Media and Communications, launching in 2022.
Professor Peggy Froerer Professor Peggy Froerer
Email Professor Peggy Froerer Professor of Anthropology
I found my way into anthropology after studying politics, completing my PhD in Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics in 2002. My doctoral research on the emergence of Hindu nationalism within adivasi communities in central India became the subject of my first book, Religious Division and Social Conflict. I joined Brunel’s Anthropology department in 2004, following postdoctoral work on the inculcation of nationalist ideologies in educational settings. Since then, I have returned regularly to India to pursue research on education, learning and schooling; childhood and youth; poverty and development; and inequality and social mobility. My second book, Futures in Flux: Education, Aspiration and Social Mobility in Rural India, considers how marginalized young people’s differentiated engagement with school education articulates with their livelihood options and aspirations for a better future. I have also been co-Investigator on a collaborative, multi-regional research project (ESRC-DfID, 2016-2018) which examines education systems, aspiration and learning outcomes in remote rural areas of India, Lesotho and Laos. I have now started a new project on educational inequalities in the UK, with a focus on the role that education plays in the (re)production of class privilege. I have directed an ethnographic film (Village Lives, Distant Powers; produced by Margaret Dickinson), which is based on my research on development, the state and corruption in central India. Qualifications: PhD Anthropology (LSE) MSc Anthropology (LSE) MA Political Science (Jawaharlal Nehru University) BA Political Science (University of Utah) I am a social anthropologists with nearly 25 years of research experience in India on subjects ranging from nationalism and ethno-religious politics, poverty and social mobility, childhood and youth, and education and schooling. Much of this research has been driven by my interest in the relationship between education and social reproduction, and the specific role that schooling plays in the reproduction of social inequalities amongst marginalised communities in rural India. This has culminated in my second book, Futures in Flux: Education, Aspiration and Social Mobility in India. With my new research, I turn my attention to educational inequalities in the UK, and specifically to the role that education plays in the (re)production of class privilege. Research area(s) South Asia Education and schooling Childhood and youth Social reproduction Poverty and development Inequality and social mobility Nationalism and ethnic conflict Programme convenor MSc Anthropology of Childhood, Youth and Education MSc Anthropology of International Development and Humanitarian Assistance Module convenor Anthropology of Education and Learning Critical Perspectives on International Development Undergraduate Dissertation Additional teaching Understanding Childhood and Youth Fieldwork Encounters Administration Co-Director, Equality and Diversity (2023-present) Director, Postgraduate Research, Department of Social Sciences, Media and Communications (2014-2021) Director, Centre for Anthropological Research on Childhood, Youth and Education (CARCYE) (2009-2014) Convenor, Undergraduate Dissertations (2012-present) Admissions Tutor (2004-2011)
Professor Peter Thomas Professor Peter Thomas
Email Professor Peter Thomas Head of Department / Professor - History of Political Thought
Professor Peter D. Thomas is an historian of political thought, an historian of philosophy and a political theorist. He has studied and worked at the University of Queensland, Freie Universität Berlin, L’Università “Federico II”, Naples, the University of Amsterdam and the University of Vienna. He has been a member in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, a research fellow at the University of Helsinki, and the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht, and a recipient of Australian, British, German, Italian and Dutch research fellowships. Qualifications: Fellow of the Higher Education Academy PhD (Amsterdam) MA (Research) BA (Hons) (UQ) BA (UQ) Professor Thomas is an historian of political thought, an historian of philosophy and a political theorist. As an historian of political thought, his major contributions have been in the history of Italian political thought in the early twentieth century, particularly the thought of Antonio Gramsci. He has also co-edited volumes on Karl Marx’s political-economic thought in historical context, and on the development of the thought of Louis Althusser. As an historian of philosophy, he has published on the history of German philosophy in the mid nineteenth century and Italian philosophy in the twentieth century, the history of Marxist philosophy, philosophies of history and theories of plural temporality. As a political theorist, his work has focused on concepts of political organization, forms of socio-political transformation, and theories of subalternity, inclusion/exclusion and citizenship. He is currently working on a study of central themes in contemporary radical political thought, including notions of the nature of politics and processes of politicization, the relationship between politics and the political, and the concept of the political subject. He is also working on a collection of documents and critical essays related to Gramsci’s time in Russia (with Professor Craig Brandist of the University of Sheffield, funded by a British Academy grant). In addition to his own research, he has also translated the work of Roberto Finelli, Antonio Negri and Massimiliano Tomba, among others. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory, and co-editor of the Historical Materialism Book Series. History of political thought History of philosophy Italian political philosophy Marxist philosophy and theory Contemporary political theory Undergraduate Programmes Module convenor The State and Revolution (Yr 2) Crisis and Critique (Yr 3) Module contributor Central Themes in Political Thought (Yr 1) Postgraduate Programmes Module convenor Revolution and Counter-revolution in Twentieth Century Political Thought Administration Co-director of the Brunel Social and Political Thought Research Centre
Professor Royona Mitra Professor Royona Mitra
Email Professor Royona Mitra Associate PVC (EDI) / Professor - Dance and Performance Cultures
Royona Mitra (she/her) is Professor in Dance and Performance Cultures and the author of Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism (Palgrave, May 2015). Her book was awarded the 2017 de la Torre Bueno First Book Award by the Dance Studies Association (DSA) and it was runner-up for the 2016 New Career Research in Theatre/Performance awarded by the Theatre & Performance Research Association (TaPRA). She has a PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London (2011) on the British-Bangladeshi dance artist Akram Khan, an MA in Physical Theatre from Royal Holloway, University of London (2001) and a BA (Hons) in Theatre & Performance from the University of Plymouth (2000). She trained in classical and contemporary South Asian dance in India and specialised in physical theatre in the UK. Prior to joining the Theatre Department at Brunel, Royona was a Senior Lecturer in the Drama Department at University of Wolverhampton where she was also the MA Drama Course Leader. She has also taught in the Theatre and Performance Department at the University of Plymouth. Royona served as a member on the REF2021 Sub Panel 33. She is one of the three Chairs of TaPRA (2022- ) alongside Drs Rachel Hann and Broderick Chow. She was elected as Secretary to join the Executive Committee for SCUDD (Standing Conference for University Drama Department) from 2013-2016. She was also an elected member of DSA’s (Dance Studies Association) Board of Directors (2018-2022), and a Working Group Convenor for the Bodies and Performance WG of TaPRA (2015-2018). She has served on the editorial board for DSA's Studies in Dance History series (2015-2018) and was a co-editor for the Training Grounds section of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training Journal (2015-2018). Royona's research addresses intersectionalities between bodies, new interculturalisms, race, gender, postcolonialities and decolonialities, and she contributes to the fields of intercultural performance, diaspora and dance, contemporary South Asian dance and physical theatre/dance theatre. Her first monograph Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism analyses the relationship between this British-Asian dance artist's complex identity-positions and his art through the lens of ‘new interculturalism’. Through seven key case studies from Khan’s oeuvre, this book demonstrates how Khan’s philosophy and aesthetic of ‘new interculturalism’ is a challenge to the 1980s predominantly western ‘intercultural theatre’ project, as a more nuanced and embodied approach to representing Othernesses, from his own position of the Other. Additionally, the book challenges popular perception of Khan’s art as contemporary South Asian dance by suggesting that, instead, Khan uses South Asian dramaturgical principles to transform the western contemporary dance landscape in intercultural ways. Offering the first full-length investigation of Akram Khan’s work, this book is essential reading for students, researchers, practitioners and fans of Khan’s work. Her current book project titled Unmaking Contact: Choreographing South Asian Touch contracted with Oxford University Press and scheduled for publication in 2024, interrogates the politics of choreographing touch at the intersections of race, gender, caste, faith, sexuality, new interculturalisms and decoloniaity, and reframes contact in choreography beyond tactility through foregrounding transnational South Asian choreographic practices. Royona is currently working alongside Dr. Prarthana Purkayastha (Royal Holloway University, UK) and Dr. Anusha Kedhar (University of California, Riverside) on a project titled “South Asian Dance Equity (SADE): The Arts British South Asian Dance Ignores,” which is being funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She is also working on a double volume co-edited anthology project alongside Drs Anurima Banerji (UCLA, USA) and Jasmine Johnson (UPenn, USA) titled The Oxford Handbooks of Dance Praxis, contracted with Oxford University Press. She completed a British Academy Small Grant funded project titled ‘Contemporary Dance and Whiteness' alongside Drs Simon Ellis (Coventry) and Arabella Stanger (Sussex) in 2019. The project’s aim was to examine race and racism in British contemporary dance and to critique whiteness as part of a commitment to the field’s anti-racist futures. The project examines whiteness as a structure of racism that exists in the relationships between personal prejudice, cultural norms, and the lived conditions of inequality and racial violence. Working in coalition with UK and US colleagues from across theatre and dance studies, Royona has been leading conversations on anti-racism for these disciplines as a scholar and an educator, with a strong commiment to dismantling their whiteness. Interculturalism and Performance Practices Critical Race Theory and Performance Practices Postcolonial Studies, Decolonialities and Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies Dance and Diaspora-Politics Contemporary South Asian Dance Practices Royona’s teaching specialisms are in the fields of physical theatre/dance–theatre, live art practices, dance and embodiment, intercultural performance and critical theory. She would be keen to supervise PhD projects in the above areas and also projects that interrogate the relationships between bodies, cultures, gender, race, sexuality and identity in performance.
Dr Sharon Lockyer Dr Sharon Lockyer
Email Dr Sharon Lockyer Associate Dean – Equality & Diversity (Students) / Reader - Sociology & Communications
Sharon Lockyer is a Reader in Sociology and Communications with an international research track-record in mediated culture, critical comedy studies, and mixed-methods research. She is founding director of the Centre for Comedy Studies Research (CCSR) - the first, and only, international and interdisciplinary research centre devoted to the academic study of comedy. Sharon has worked on externally funded projects involving multiple stakeholders and is skilled in leading public engagement and impact activities involving diverse audiences, which utilise her extensive academic, industry, and public contacts. She has researched and taught at other institutions including Loughborough University and De Montfort University, and has been a Visiting Professor at Dunarea de Jos University of Galati. Before becoming an academic Sharon worked in the cultural industries. Sharon’s research interests fall within the broad areas of mediated culture, critical comedy studies and media controversies. She has written extensively on the ethics and aesthetics of live and mediated comedy in relation to class, gender and disability. She is particularly interested in instances of popular humour and comedy that excite social tension and moral controversy. Her co-edited book (with Professor Michael Pickering) Beyond a Joke: The Limits of Humour and journal article in Sociology Compass (with Michael Pickering) are key texts in critical comedy studies. She is also interested in methodological issues and debates in humour and comedy studies. Critical comedy studies Equality and diversity in the cultural and creative industries Media controversies Media disability studies Undergraduate Programmes Communication and Media Studies BSc Sociology BSc Sociology (Media) BSc Module convenor Comedy, the Media and Society (Level 6) Module contributor Key Ideas in Media (Level 4) Sociology and Communications Dissertations (Level 6) Work Placements (Levels 4 and 5) Postgraduate Programmes Media and Communications MSc Module convenor Issues and Controversies in Media and Communications (Level 7) Module contributor Media and Communications Dissertation (Level 7)
Dr Stelios Andreadakis Dr Stelios Andreadakis
Email Dr Stelios Andreadakis Reader in Corporate and Financial Law
Dr Stelios Andreadakis is a Reader in Corporate and Financial Law and Director of Postgraduate Admissions. He is also the Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Law, Economics and Finance. Prior to joining Brunel, he was a Lecturer and LLM Director at the University of Leicester and a Senior Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University. He holds a PhD and an LLM in International Commercial Law from the University of Leicester and an undergraduate Law degree from the Law School of the University of Athens, Greece. Dr Andreadakis’ research interests are in the areas of Corporate Law and EU Law. He is particularly interested in corporate governance, exploring aspects of regulation of companies, corporate theories, the operation of financial markets and the role of scandals in the introduction of new legislation. His current work focuses on the role of whistle-blowers in modern corporate governance and he is conducting empirical research in the US, Japan and Europe. A monograph will be published by Edward Elgar with the findings of the research project and his recommendations as to the role of corporate culture in the strengthening of whistleblower protection worldwide. Dr Andreadakis has published a very influential monograph, co-authored with Prof Sonia Morano-Foadi, on the process of European integration, the role of the judiciary and policy-makers as well as the future of human rights protection in the EU. In recognition of his work on this area, Dr Andreadakis was invited to make a contribution as an expert to a public Hearing organised by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs of the European Parliament in April 2016 in Brussels. Qualifications PhD, University of Leicester LLM, University of Leicester LLB, University of Athens PG Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (Oxford Brookes University) Qualified lawyer (Athens Bar Association) Whistleblower Protection Corporate Governance Company Law EU Law EU Accession to the ECHR Teaching Company Law (Convenor) Comparative Corporate Law (Convenor) Principles of Corporate Law Governance, Regulation and Compliance (Convenor) Student Support Dr Stelios Andreadakis is the Director of Postgraduate Admissions for Brunel Law School.
Professor William Watkin Professor William Watkin
Email Professor William Watkin Professor - English
William Watkin is Professor of Contemporary Philosophy and Literature. He has been at Brunel University since 1999, and has held a personal Chair there since 2008. He is currently Director of Research for the Arts and Humanities Department, a position he has held more than once. During his time at Brunel he has also served as Head of English and of the English and Creative Writing Division and Deputy Head of the School. Professor Watkin has extensive experience with research assessment. He wrote English’s successful RAE2008 bid, our first submission as a unit to the RAE. He then supervised the early stages of our successful REF 2014 bid, overseeing the school’s internal mock-REF. He took over the final stages of the REF2021 submission, creating a vision for the division "Transforming the Literary Landscape." This submission was highly commended by the university and resulted in one of the highest GPAs at Brunel. Prof. Watkin’s research profile is extremely well-established, highly-regarded, influential and wide-ranging. His main area of interest for the last decade has been the philosophy of indifference. Although a well-established philosopher, Watkin began his career working on contemporary poetics and literary theory and wrote three books in this area. The third of these "The Literary Agamben", was highly regarded by Agamben himself and paved the way for the second phase of Watkin's career as he transitioned from a literary theorist to a continental philosopher. Watkin is the world's leading expert on the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben. Of his fourth book "Agamben and Indifference" Agamben himself wrote: "Watkin has produced a work of astonishing originality, which any attempt to read twentieth-century philosophy will be obliged to confront”. Of the same book leading philosoher François Laruelle wrote: “Watkin’s sharp lens is indispensable for those who want to grasp a central aspect of contemporary philosophy." Watkin is also one of the leading voices on the philosophy of Alain Badiou having written two books on key concepts in Badiou's overall project: "Badiou and Indifferent Being" and "Badiou and Communicable Worlds". Watkin's seventh book, "Bioviolence: How the powers that be make us do what they want" applies his philosophy of indifference to biopolitical theory, another area where he has extensive expertise. "Bioviolence" is also the first attempt by Watkin to apply indifferential thought to contemporary, real-world examples. This project is continued in his next book "Herd Immunities: The Philosophy of Covid" which analyses the global pandemic using the indifferential reasoning he has developed in the earlier work. Watkin is a published journalist with articles in The Independent, The Week, Newsweek Europe, The Big Issue, The Conversation, The New Philosopher, TES and The White Review. He has made various media appearances, and is also also a blogger and film-maker. He has a strong interest in the internet, social media, disinformation and, more recently AI. He is also a painter and large abstract acrylics. Many of the covers of his books were painted by him. Research Areas: Continental philosophy: Agamben, Badiou, Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Kristeva, Nancy, Esposito Analytical philosophy: Extensional logic, Frege, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine Literary Theory Contemporary and Modern Poetics Violence Biopolitics Covid Social media, AI and digital culture Prof. Watkin will supervise projects on any aspects of the work of Agamben, Badiou, Nancy and Deleuze. Further he will consider supervising students on any areas of literary theory, continental philosophy, contemporary literature, experimental poetry and poetics in general. His current research interest is indifference as a development, completion and critique of discourses of difference that have predominated in the humanities for the last forty years. He just completed a monograph on the work of philosopher Giorgio Agamben in relation to indifference. Agamben is one of Watkin’s areas of specialisation, having published the first critical monograph on Agamben and literature in 2010. He is currently working on Deleuze and indifference. His other major project is a consideration of the complex relation between poetry and philosophy since Heidegger, which conceives of poetry/literature as a mode of thinking or, as Watkin calls it, logopoiesis. His 2010 Agamben monograph is part of a three volume study of logopoiesis which will include work on Nancy and Badiou in the years to come. Previously Watkin has published books on the New York School of poetry in relation to avant-gardism and theoretical consideration of literatures of mourning in the modern era. He has published numerous articles on contemporary experimental poetry: Ashbery, O’Hara, Koch, Schulyer, Hejinian, Silliman, Bernstein, and Du Plessis Contemporary Poetry and Poetics Literature and Philosophy Contemporary Continental Philosophy: Agamben, Badiou, Deleuze, Nancy Indifference William Watkin has taught a wide variety of areas at Brunel. His current teaching interests revolve around the changing face of literary theory in the new millennium. He runs courses on the relation of philosophy to literature and the arts from the historical origins of aesthetics through to the most contemporary philosophical statements on aesthetics and literature. He has also taught contemporary literature for many years, specialising in contemporary poetry and poetics. He has a wider interest in poetics and has taught the history of poetry. Another interest is the avant-garde and experimentalism. He taught modernism and the avant-garde for many years and continues to run seminars on experimental, contemporary poetry. Activities: Key Publications: “The Poetics of Presentation: Lyn Hejinian’s My Life Project and the work of Giorgio Agamben” Textual Practice 2012. “The / Turn and the “ ” Pause: Agamben, Derrida and the Stratification of Poetry” in Textures Series, Lexington Press 2011. “Poetry’s Promiscuous Plurality: On a Part of Jean-Luc Nancy’s The Muses[PG1] ” in Jean-Luc Nancy and Plural Thinking SUNY 2011. The Literary Agamben: Adventures in Logopoiesis (London: Continuum University Press, March 2010). “Derrida’s Limits: Aporias between ‘Ousia and Grammē’,” Derrida Today 3.1 (2010): 113-136. “Projective Recursion: The Structure of Ron Silliman’s Tjanting,” Jacket 39 (2010). “Taking steps beyond elegy: poetry, philosophy, lineation, and death,” Textual Practice 23.6 (2009): 1051-1065. “The Materialization of Prose: Poiesis versus Dianoia in the work of Godzich & Kittay, Schklovsky, Silliman and Agamben,” Paragraph 31.3 (2008): 344-364. “‘Systematic rule-governed violations of convention’: Ron Silliman’s Poetic Procedures,” Contemporary Literature 48.4, 2007: 499-529. “Counterchange: Derrida’s Poetry,” in Encountering Derrida: Legacies and Futures of Deconstruction (London: Continuum, 2007). On Mourning: Theories of Loss in Modern Literature. (Edinburgh University Press, 2004). “Revolution, Melancholia and Materiality in the Work of Julia Kristeva”. Paragraph 26.3 (2003): 86-107. “Friendly Little Communities: Derrida’s Politics of Death.” Strategies: Journal of Theory, Culture and Politics 15.2 (2002): 219-237. In the Process of Poetry: The New York School and the Avant-Garde. (Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell University Press, 2001). “Poetry Machines: Repetition in the Early Poetry of Kenneth Koch.” EnterText 1.1 (Dec. 2000): 83-117.
Dr Yohai Hakak Dr Yohai Hakak
Email Dr Yohai Hakak Senior Lecturer in Social Work
Dr Yohai Hakak joined Brunel in September 2014. Dr. Hakak's practice experience is in mental health social work. His areas of research interests are migration, embodiment, parenting, risk-perception, youth, religion, gender and mental health and the connection of these areas with social work. Dr Hakak published in these areas numerous articles. His last manuscript titled Haredi Masculinities between the Yeshiva, the Army, Work and Politics: The Sage, the Warrior and the Entrepreneur was an ethnographic study of Jewish Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) young men in Israel. It was published by Brill in 2016. The outcomes of Yohai’s academic work included also several award-winning documentary films. Yohai is interested in supervising students in the following areas and in relation to social work: Migration Embodiment Religious minorities Masculine identities Mental health Risk and its perception Mixed couples Yohai's current areas of research interest are: Embodiment in Academic and Professional Practice | Brunel University London The migration of professionals Mixed families Religious minorities Mental health State power
Dr Eleanor Higgs Dr Eleanor Higgs
Email Dr Eleanor Higgs Lecturer in Sociology
I am an interdisciplinary feminist scholar in humanities and social sciences. After completing my PhD I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at University of Cape Town. I joined Brunel in September 2021. Gender and religion Christianity and Christian institutions YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association) movement Postcolonial and decolonial feminisms Ethics History and present day effects of coloniality in English-speaking Africa (especially Kenya and South Africa) I have held research fellowships at the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth, Germany (2020-21), and at the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) at the University of Ghana (2022). In 2023-24: SO2606 'Bodies & Society' SO3612 'Gender, Sexuality, and Feminism' CO5606 '21st Century Media-Bodies'
Dr Emily Horton Dr Emily Horton
Email Dr Emily Horton Senior Lecturer
Emily received her PhD from the University of Nottingham in 2009 and worked at various universities, including Brunel, as a Visiting Lecturer before taking on a full-time staff position at Brunel in 2018. As a lecturer in English, specialising in World Literatures in English, she is particularly interested in exploring globalization, cosmopolitanism and diasporic literatures, often through the lens of trauma and affect theories. She has also published in relation to contemporary British literature, Gothic fiction, and queer writing, again often in relation to the abovesaid theories. Academia.edu page: Emily's research reflects her interest in the connections between contemporary literature and recent critical theory examining representations of trauma and affect as a means to contemplating alternative modes of socio-political belonging. Emily's monograph, Contemporary Crisis Fictions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), focuing on the writing of Graham Swift, Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro, explores a newly emergent genre of literary fiction concerned to negotiate the crises impelled by neoliberal power. Rejecting popular postmodern and metafictional readings in favour of a combined historical materialist and affect theory approach, she reads these texts as instigating new modes of critical cosmopolitan thinking, which both reflect and respond to the cultural ambiguities of the contemporary period. Her edited collection on The 1980s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2014), co-edited with Philip Tew and Leigh Wilson, offers a comprehensive re-reading of 1980s British fiction from a post-millennial, world-oriented perspective, incorporating new critical theory to reconsider issues of form, genre, style and to animate new discussion regarding the nature of contemporary literary creativity, experiment, and reading practice from the 1980s on-wards. Her edited collection on Ali Smith (Bloomsbury, 2013), co-edited with Monica Germanà, explores Smith’s fiction with respect to a number of critically prescient themes, including contemporary feminism and queer theory, consumer space and ‘non-place’, spectral time and temporality, Scottish devolution, the contemporary publishing industry, and recent developments in deconstructive and cosmopolitan narrative ethics. More broadly, Emily's publications mirror her concern with late twentieth and early twenty-first century literature’s on-going encounter with socio-political struggle, often in relation to the crises impelled by globalisation. 20th and 21st Century Anglophone World Literature 20th and 21st Century British Literature Trauma and Affect Theory Globalisation, Cosmopolitanism and Diasporic Literature The Gothic Tradition (19th-21st Century) Spatial Theory Queer Writing Since beginning teaching at Brunel in 2009, Emily has taught across all levels of the department, including a range of modules both inside and beyond her research specialism, and encompassing undergraduate and postgraduate courses. She currently convenes two key modules: World Literature (Level 1) and The Women's Movement (Level 2). Previously, she acted as a principle lecturer on Postmillennial Fiction (MA), Post-war and Late Twentieth Century Writing (Level 3), Learning London (Level 1), and Popular Fictions (Level 1), as well as lecturing on Modernism (Level 2) and Postcolonialism (Level 2). She also supervises final year undergraduates.
Dr Victor Jatula Dr Victor Jatula
Email Dr Victor Jatula Lecturer in Communications and Journalism
My research is located in the general field of press and politics. I explore media studies, democracy and development. It is problem-based and relies on qualitative and empirical data collection methods. The key research focus is economic and political development with a particular emphasis on the political economy of the mass media. Specifically, it investigates factors that foster or hinder democratic processes, political participation and social development. It also examines the role of communication in such spaces and societies. My overarching focus is press and politics; and how this interconnection underpins social changes and development in emerging democracies. My research investigates two related areas: the nature of the relationship of media systems to broader structure of society. Specifically, it examines how media content reinforce, challenge or influence existing class and political relations. Second, it looks at how ownership, advertising and state policies influence media production, distribution and consumption; with forward and backward linkages to public opinion, political culture and democracy. I am interested in the intersection of press, politics and development in emerging democracies in the Global South. My speciality is in Nigeria's politics and media studies. Undergraduate JR2607- Research in Practice SO1703 Me, You or Us CO1603 Journalism, Communication and Politics SO1606 Power, Inequality and Society Postgraduate JR5626 News and Development in the Global South (Africa) PP5619 Research in Social and Political Science CO5515- Issues and Controversies in Media and Communication
Dr Maria Kastrinou Dr Maria Kastrinou
Email Dr Maria Kastrinou Lecturer in Anthropology
Maria Kastrinou is a social anthropologist with fieldwork experience in South-Eastern Mediterranean, specifically in Syria, Greece, Lebanon and in the Israeli-Occupied Golan Heights. Her research critically interrogates the politics of religion, sect, state and statelessness, the political and cultural lives of refugees, and the political economy of conflict and resistance. Her monograph Power, Sect and State in Syria (I.B. Tauris 2016) is the first ethnography of the Druze minority in Syria, and one of only a handful of anthropological works about Syria. She has been engaged with projects on sectarianism, statelessness and refugees in the Middle East and she is currently working on the Druze Heritage Foundation funded research project ‘Lives across divides: Ethnographic stories from the Golan Heights.’ Experimenting between anthropology and theatre, together with Hannah Knoerk and Johannes Birringer, they formed the Hotspot Collective and created, produced and performed ‘The Price of Water’ – a political play about refugees, capitalism and the Hotspot critically engaging with Kastrinou's ethnographic work in Greece and the Middle East. I convene the second year undergraduate module Political and Economic Issues in Anthropology. I am contributing to Making the Social (convened by Gareth Dale) and teach on Global London (convened by Inge Dornan). In the past, I have convened or taught the following modules: Classical Anthropological Theory; Introduction to Social Anthropology; Anthropology, Objects and Images; Anthropological Perspectives on War and Humanitarian Assistance; Practising Anthropology 1; Ethnographic Research Methods; Ethnographic Encounters.
Professor Jago Morrison Professor Jago Morrison
Email Professor Jago Morrison Professor - English
Jago Morrison is a specialist in contemporary literature. His key areas of expertise are: Contemporary Fiction and Security. Postcolonial Writing in English, with a special interest in Chinua Achebe. Contemporary women’s writing. Jago welcomes expressions of interest from research students interested in studying to MPhil and PhD level in his specialist areas, including from candidates wishing to pursue critical/creative research projects. Jago is an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Peer Reviewer and represents Brunel at the Council for College and University English (CCUE). Jago’s current research explores literature and security. Recent and forthcoming pieces explore themes of radicalisation, terrorism and the changing security paradigm since 9/11. Read Morrison on Jihadi Fiction here. His first book Contemporary Fiction (Routledge, 2003) is a standard in the field. Exploring nine major international writers, it draws out a number of common themes and concerns ranging from the crisis of historical representation, through the changing nature of ‘race’ discourse to literary deconstructions of gender and the body. His second book Scandalous Fictions (ed. with Susan Watkins, Palgrave 2006) re-examines fiction of the twentieth century through a canon of iconic works - from Ulysses to The Satanic Verses - which troubled the public sphere through scandal. The Post-War British Literature Handbook (ed. With Katharine Cockin, Continuum, 2010) is a book for students, introducing the (sometimes dauntingly complex) field of contemporary criticism in a user-friendly way. The book includes sample readings of key texts, keynote chapters by influential critics and overviews of all the major critical approaches. In postcolonial studies, Jago is an acknowledgted expert on the work of Chinua Achebe. His monograph Chinua Achebe (Manchester University Press, 2014) offers a complete rereading of the writer and his work, significantly shifting the terms of debate on one of contemporary world literature's most important figures. Jago has also written a more student-friendly critical guide, The Fiction of Chinua Achebe (Palgrave, 2007), providing the most wide-ranging introduction to the field of Achebe studies available. Jago has also co-written a policy report with the leading think tank DEMOS, exploring changing attitudes to ageing through fiction and reader response analysis. Coming of Age (with Bazalgette, Holden, Tew & Hubble, Demos, 2011) is an innovative example of applied literary studies, exposing the gaps between the lived experience of twenty-first century ageing and the outdated assumptions that often underpin public policy debate. Contemporary Fiction and Security. Postcolonial Writing in English, with a special interest in Chinua Achebe. Contemporary Women’s Writing. Jago teaches post-war and contemporary writing, including postcolonialism. He is interested in innovative pedagogies, especially new forms of assessment, and has pioneered the use of the audio-visual essay as an alternative to traditional criticism. He supervises research to PhD level and welcomes applications in his areas of expertise. Modules currently taught: EN1702 Texts, Contexts, Intertexts - EN2011 Postcolonial Writing - EN3069 Post-War and Late Twentieth Century Writing Activities: Selected Publications ‘Ageing Re-imagined: Exploring Older Women’s Attitudes to Ageing through Reader Response’ Contemporary Women’s Writing, 6:1 (forthcoming, Jan 2012). Coming of Age (London: Demos, 2011). With Louise Bazalgette, John Holden, Nick Hubble & Philip Tew. www.demos.co.uk/publications/comingofage The Post-War British Literature Handbook, eds. Cockin, K. & Morrison, J. (London: Continuum, 2010) The Fiction of Chinua Achebe: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) ‘ ‘Who cares about gender at a time like this?’ Love, Sex and the Problem of Jeanette Winterson’ Journal of Gender Studies, 15:2 (2006) 169-80. Scandalous Fictions: The Twentieth Century Novel in the Public Sphere, eds. Morrison, J. and Watkins, S. (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) ‘Imagined Biafras: Fabricating Nation in Nigerian Civil War Writing’ ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature 36:1-2 (2005), 5-26. Contemporary Fiction (London: Routledge, 2003)
Dr Elena Abrusci Dr Elena Abrusci
Email Dr Elena Abrusci Senior Lecturer in Law
Elena joined Brunel in 2021 as Lecturer in Law. Prior to that, she worked as a Policy Advisor on Digital Regulation at the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and as a Senior Research Officer at the University of Essex on the ESRC-funded 'The Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project'. Elena has also extensively worked on modern slavery and human trafficking at the Rights Lab of the University of Nottingham and at Walk Free Foundation, contributing to the 2017, 2018 and 2019 editions of the Global Slavery Index. She acted as a consultant for several UN agencies (including WHO, UNESCO and OHCHR), tech companies and governments. Elena has an interdisciplinary background in law and politics and her research focuses on regional human rights systems and the impact of AI and technology on human rights. She holds a PhD in Law from the University of Nottingham, a Master in International Relations and Law from the University of Florence and Sciences-Po Paris, a postgraduate diploma in Politics from Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies (Pisa) and an undergraduate degree in Politics and International Relations from the University of Pisa. Her PhD thesis explored the issues of judicial convergence and fragmentation in International Human Rights Law, looking at the case-law of the African, European and Inter-American human rights court and has been published as a monograph by Cambridge University Press in December 2022. Elena's research interests include: regional human rights systems, their institutional settings and case-law; the impact of emerging technologies and artificial intelligence on human rights, online content moderation with a specific focus on disinformation/misinformation and online hate speech; digital regulation and AI governance. International Human Rights Law Regional Human Rights Systems Digital Regulation and Governance Human Rights & Technology Hate speech and freedom of expression online LX3072 - International Human Rights Law (module convenor) LX1032 - Public Law LX2081 - European Union Law LX3608 - Law, Science and Technology PP3665 - Parliamentary Studies
Dr Anna Tuckett Dr Anna Tuckett
Email Dr Anna Tuckett Senior Lecturer in Anthropology
Dr. Anna Tuckett received her PhD from the London School of Economics in 2014. She specialises in political and legal anthropology, with a specific focus on migration in Italy and the UK. Anna is particularly interested in how people experience and manage the state, law and bureaucracy in their everyday lives. Her book, Rules, Paper, Status: Migrants and Precarious Bureaucracy in Contemporary Italy (2018), published by Stanford University Press was awarded the 2019 William A. Douglass Prize in Europeanist Anthropology. It examines the ways in which immigration laws and policies work on the ground in one of Europe’s biggest receiving countries. It analyses the complex processes of inclusion and exclusion that are produced through encounters with immigration law as migrants attempt to obtain legal status, renew permits and be reunited with family members. Anna's work offers new insights into established anthropological debates concerning the state, brokerage, subjectivity and ethics through the lens of a high-profile contemporary social issue, while also providing unique perspectives on debates around legality, illegality and integration. Anna’s most recent research was conducted in London as part of a collaborative ESRC-funded project entitled ‘An ethnography of advice: between market, society and the declining welfare state’. Exploring the emergence of unofficial and unregulated citizenship test schools in London, Anna's study examines the lived realities of integration policies within a wider context of austerity measures and state reconfiguration. Prior to joining Brunel, Anna held teaching and research positions at LSE.
Dr Simon Weaver Dr Simon Weaver Simon is a Reader in Media and Communications at Brunel University London. He is an internationally recognised expert on humour and comedy, whose research has provided a foundational critique of racist and offensive humour, and significantly reshaped understandings of the links between populism and comedy. Simon is a founding member of the Centre for Comedy Studies Research (CCSR) at Brunel University London. Simon completed his PhD in the Department of Sociology, University of Bristol, with a thesis entitled Humour, Rhetoric and Racism: A Sociological Critique of Racist Humour. That thesis formed the basis of his first book, The Rhetoric of Racist Humour: US, UK and Global Race Joking, which was published by Ashgate in September 2011. His first journal article (The ‘Other’ Laughs Back: Humour and Resistance in Anti-Racist Comedy, Sociology 2010 44.1: 31-48), won the British Sociological Association’s ‘Sage Prize for Innovation and/or Excellence 2011’. Between his PhD and arriving at Brunel in 2012, Simon worked as a Research Associate in Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester and held an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Communications and Media Studies, Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University. Qualifications: PhD Sociology (Bristol) MSc Sociology (Bristol) BA History and Sociology (UWE) Simon’s research interests focus on a number of overlapping areas in sociology, communications and media studies. These are social and cultural theory, the work of Zygmunt Bauman, semiotics, representations of disability and ‘deformity’ in media, racist and offensive humour, humour and rhetoric, and the sociology of race, ethnicity and racism. Most recently, Simon has been researching comedy about Brexit, the relationship between comedy and populism, and the ironies and ambiguities of Brexit discourse. This forms the subject of his latest book, The Rhetoric of Brexit Humour: Comedy, Populism and the EU Referendum (Routledge, 2021). Racist & offensive humour, humour & rhetoric; Comedy, populism and Brexit; Social & cultural theory, the work of Zygmunt Bauman, semiotics; Sociology of race, ethnicity & racism; Representations of disability and 'deformity' in media. Undergraduate Teaching Module convenor Me, You or Us? Analysing Identity and Power (Yr 1) Module contributor Comedy, the Media and Society (Yr 3) Postgraduate Teaching Module convenor Media as Power Analysing the Media Dissertation in Media and Communications Political Comedy and Satire Module contributor Digital Media Career Development
Dr Paula Zwozdiak-Myers Dr Paula Zwozdiak-Myers
Email Dr Paula Zwozdiak-Myers Reader in Education
Paula is an experienced teacher, teacher educator, course director, researcher, external examiner and writer of educational materials. Over the past five years she has been an active member of the National Advisory Group for Initial Teacher Training [ITT], convened by the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL), formerly the Teacher Training and Development Agency [TA] for England, and Chair of the London South East 1 regional network for ITT providers. This forum provides the platform for all providers of ITT, offering diverse routes into the teaching profession to work with government agencies in shaping the direction of future educational policy and practice. Paula currently supports two other Higher Education Institutions through her quality assurance roles as: (i) Chief External Examiner for the Teach First programme [Institute of Education, London] and (ii) External Examiner for the Postgraduate Professional Development Programme [Manchester Metropolitan University]. She is also a member of the Steering Group and Strategic Management Group within the Thames Valley Schools Partnership, an organisation that evolved through the collaborative work and shared vision between Buckinghamshire County Council and Brunel University, to secure the license awarded by the National College for School Leadership to deliver Levels 1, 2 and 3 of the National Professional Qualification of Headship [NPQH]. As Course Director for Secondary Initial Teacher Education at Brunel University [former role of responsibility] Paula steered multi-disciplinary teams of colleagues in the design, development, dissemination and evaluation of a suite of Post Graduate Certificate in Education programmes for trainee teachers in English; Information & Communication Technology; Mathematics; Physical Education; and, Science as well as a four-year undergraduate BSc Secondary Education and Physical Education course with Qualified Teacher Status. In so doing, she worked collaboratively with Course Leaders across the School of Education at Brunel University as well as Course Directors from three other Higher Education Institutions [HEIs] within the South West London Teacher Education Consortium [SWELTEC] to promote high quality pedagogical outcomes in teaching, learning and assessment. Paula has undertaken the role of acting course leader for the MA in Education and currently is the Programme Leader for a new and innovative MA in Teaching which she steered from inception through to its successful validation and pending launch from September 2014. For the MA in Education she leads the Specialist pathway in Inclusion and Special Educational Needs, the Independent Study and Research Methods in Education modules and supervises dissertation students. She has also recently assumed the role of acting course leader for the Doctor of Education [EdD] programme and currently contributes to the teaching, supervision and viva voce examinations of PhD and EdD national and international part-time and full-time research students, pursuing an eclectic blend of topics/subject areas. Paula is a member of the Pedagogy and Professional Practice (PPP) Research Group, which involves working with colleagues on such projects as Models of Teacher Education and Pathways to Learning as well as the use of ICT to support professional development and practice. She regularly attends and supports the research seminar series run by the School as well as those offered across the wider University. Prior to joining Brunel University Paula was: Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) Childhood and Youth Studies degree course at De Montfort University, Bedford [now the University of Bedfordshire] and her book entitled Childhood and Youth Studies reflects the substantive content of this programme; Head of Professional Studies for the BA (Hons) Secondary Physical Education Initial Teacher Education course with Qualified Teacher Status; module leader and dissertation supervisor on the MA in Education programme; and, Lead researcher in Mentoring within the Institute of Education. She was instrumental in training new and experienced mentors for their support roles and responsibilities within university-based and school-based ITT partnerships. A major component of this mentor training has been to focus on the outcomes of different models of partnership working with trainees e.g. the impact of single, paired and multiple placements within a range of educational settings on the respective institutions, practitioners and learners as well as the setting of clear, specific, measurable goals both to enable and monitor progression. Paula has steered a large-scale research study across five counties in England to investigate how continuity and progression from primary to secondary school is facilitated, and contributed toward the publication of research outcomes to national and European audiences. She is currently working with colleagues from 7 other HEIs to investigate the knowledge, skills and understanding of trainees, mentors and tutors in relation to Lesson planning. Other research interests include: Reflective Practice; Models of effective Partnership working in ITE; Mentor training, support and accreditation; Removing barriers to achievement; Interpersonal relationships and Communication skills; Management and Leadership skills; Continuing Professional Development; Links between ICT Advanced Skills Teachers’ [AST] and ITE as well as harnessing the use of new technologies and resources both to scaffold and accelerate learning. Her recently published book commissioned by Routledge and entitled The Teacher’s Reflective Practice Handbook: Becoming an extended professional through capturing evidence-informed practice consolidates much of the work generated from her own PhD research. Before entering the Higher Education sector, Paula gained considerable experience through teaching a diverse range of learners and assuming numerous leadership roles and responsibilities in management and senior management at urban [Inner London], rural and suburban secondary schools in and across the East of England. She has particular interests in assessment for learning, creativity, emotional intelligence, the psychosocial and emotional aspects of behaviour and development, interpersonal relationships, communication skills, independent learning, personalised learning and the co-creation of new knowledge. She values difference and diversity, promotes potential and entitlement, and wholeheartedly supports the inclusive agenda. Career History PROFESSIONAL ORGANISATIONS/ASSOCIATIONS Universities Council for Teacher Education [UCET] – Vice Chair of the CPD committee Training Managers National Advisory Group [NCTL] Chair for Initial Teacher Training Regional network: London SE1 [NCTL] Thames Valley Schools Partnership: Steering Group and Strategic Management Group committee member Fellow of the Higher Education Academy [FHEA] General Teaching Council for England [GTC – until its recent closure] International professional development association [iPDA] Bedford College of Physical Education Old Students’ Association [BPEOSA] ADDITIONAL ROLES/RESPONSIBILITIES Education Management Research Group Education Appeals Officer School Board Teaching and Learning Committee Secondary Initial Teacher Education Partnership Management group Research Ethics Committee Internal PhD and EdD Examiner Post Graduate Research progression panel Quality Assurance across the Thames Valley Schools Partnership School Governor for a local Academy – Curriculum Development Committee Book reviewer for Routledge and Sage publications Article reviewer for the Health Education Research journal Paula’s main research interest is to create Learning Pathways, which capture Reflective Practice for Professional Development in student, early career and experienced teachers within her innovative framework designed to structure evidence informed practice. Other research interests include: Models of effective Partnership working in ITE; Mentor training, support and accreditation; Removing barriers to achievement; Interpersonal relationships and Communication skills; Management and Leadership skills; Continuing Professional Development; Links between ICT Advanced Skills Teachers’ [AST] and ITE as well as harnessing the use of new technologies and resources to scaffold and accelerate learning. Her book commissioned by Routledge and entitled The Teacher’s Reflective Practice Handbook: Becoming an extended professional through capturing evidence-informed practice consolidates much of the work generated from her own PhD research. BOOKS Zwozdiak-Myers, P. The Teacher\'s Reflective Practice Handbook. Becoming an extended professional through capturing evidence-informed practice. Routledge. ISBN: 978-0-415-59758-6 The Teacher\'s Reflective Practice Handbook is an essential source of advice, guidance and ideas for both students and practising teachers. Helping you to translate pedagogical knowledge into practice, this handbook guides you through studying your own teaching for personal development, evaluating your lessons through classroom research, and enhancing the quality of pupil learning. It offers an innovative framework which serves to prepare you for the challenges and complexities of the classroom environment, and supports the continuing improvement of your teaching. Underpinned by key theoretical concepts and contemporary research within the field of education, chapters help you to: systematically evaluate your teaching through classroom research procedures question personal theories and beliefs, and consider alternative perspectives and possibilities try out new strategies and ideas to maximise the learning potential of all students enhance the quality of, and continue to improve your teaching. Including a range of reflective tasks, links to online resources, exemplification material and further reading to help you d Paula has steered a large-scale research study across five counties in England to investigate how continuity and progression from primary to secondary school is facilitated, and contributed toward the publication of research outcomes to national and European audiences. She is currently working with colleagues from 7 other HEIs to investigate the knowledge, skills and understanding of trainees, mentors and tutors in relation to Lesson planning.
Dr Ivan Girina Dr Ivan Girina
Email Dr Ivan Girina Senior Lecturer in Games Studies
Ivan Girina is a Senior Lecturer in Game Studies and holds a PhD in Film and Television Studies from the University of Warwick, his research is currently focused on digital games asethetic, particualrly its relationship with cinema and larger visual media landscapes. Ivan is also co-founder and member of the Editorial Board of the international academic journal G|A|M|E – Games as Art, Media and Entertainment. He has published on a variety of topics such as: cinematic games; video game agency; film and new media; media literacy and education; and Italian regional cinema. I am Module Convenor for: FM2608 (BA) - Game Studies 2: Concepts and Analysis FM3615 (BA) - Theory Project: Business & Development FM3616 (BA) - Theory Project: Game Analysis GD3600 (BA) - Film and Video Games GD5600 (MA) - Interdisciplinary Module GD5604 (MA) - Game Studies: Cocepts, Contexts & Analysis
Dr Katja Sarmiento-Mirwaldt Dr Katja Sarmiento-Mirwaldt
Email Dr Katja Sarmiento-Mirwaldt Vice Dean Research (CBASS) / Reader
I completed my PhD in 2007 with the support of the ESRC and the University of Essex. I then joined the European Policies Research Centre at the University of Strathclyde to pursue an ESRC-funded post-doctoral and research fellowship. Having worked as a Research Officer at the London School of Economics for two years, I joined the department in August 2012. My research interests cover several aspects of contemporary European politics and policy. First, I am interested in the regional and spatial dimensions of European politics, including citizen relations across national borders, cross-border cooperation and regional development policy. Second, I have a broad interest in the way that politicians justify and communicate their ideas about political institutions and practices in party manifestos or parliamentary debates. Third, I am working on a collaborative research project that examines perceptions of politicians' ethical conduct in Britain, France and Germany. I have a special interest in Polish, German and French politics but am also interested in broader political developments in post-communist Europe. My research has been funded by the ESRC, the British Academy, the Polish-German Science Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Comparative European politics (especially Polish, German and French politics) Borders and cross-border cooperation Political communication Corruption perceptions Undergraduate Programmes Module convenor Research Design and Qualitative Methods in Politics (Yr 1) European Union Politics: Problems and Prospects (Yr 3)
Dr Stuart Andrews Dr Stuart Andrews
Email Dr Stuart Andrews Senior Lecturer in Theatre
I am interested in the ways we understand, practise and manage the places around us. As a Co-director of Performing City Resilience, I work with emergency planners, culture directors, organisations, and companies to develop/implement creative strategies in response to local and global challenges. This collaborative work has led individuals, local authorities, companies and organisations to think in new ways about their work and to revise key policies and procedures, as demonstrated in New Orleans (USA). Critically, recent collaborative work led the Emergency Planning Society (international) to embed creativity in its core competencies. I have published internationally on arts, architecture, culture, emergency and resilience planning, performance, and place. Publications comprise books and academic articles, professional reporting and blog posts. Currently, I am working with Dr Patrick Duggan on two new monographs for Louisiana State University Press and Palgrave. At Brunel University London, I am engaged in interdisciplinary research and teaching on place, performance, and resilience. Within academic institutions, I have held leadership roles in research, learning and teaching, and associated areas at subject, department and/or school level. These have focused particularly on facilitating research and research impact development, designing and managing degree programmes, and growing international partnerships. I have examined written and 'practice as research' doctoral projects (both individual and collaborative submissions) exploring place and performance. There are two key strands to my research. Performance, Place and Resilience: I am a Co-Director of Performing City Resilience, an internationally focused research-led consultancy that develops creative practices of resilience and emergency planning in the UK and internationally. This is highly collaborative work, and Dr Patrick Duggan and I have been leading this project since 2017. Since 2020, we have been working on a UKRI-funded Rapid Response Covid-19 project exploring intersections between arts and resilience strategy in UK cities. On this project, we have worked closely wth UK local authoriites and the Emergency Planning Society, and have developed innovative invitations for pandemic response. Internationally, we have worked in New Orleans since 2018. Following an intial survey of arts and resilience practice in that year, we were invited to contribute to the development of the City’s five-year Hazard Mitigation Plan and the grassroots Cultural Masterplan in 2019. In June 2019, we delivered bespoke workshops for key city stakeholders including New Orleans Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (NOHSEP) – together with departments across City Hall, the Arts Council of New Orleans, and the Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans. As a direct result of our work, NOHSEP are engaged on ‘a long-term path of embedding arts and cultural practices in our strategic planning’. Performing Place: Architecture and Environment: In 2019, I published Performing Home (Routledge), the first book to consider performances of home in domestic dwellings. This book speaks to research and practice in installation, performance and architecture, and looks directly at practices of enquiring into, making, adapting, mobilising, and being resident in domestic dwellings. It considers artists’ responses to place and to the possibilities, but also difficulties, of practising home. That same year, Matthew Wagner and I published The Dramaturgy of the Door (Routledge), the first book length study of the performance of the door – a key architectural element. In this, we explore the importance of doors in stage and place-based practice, and thereby issues of borders, thresholds, bodies, environments and practices of access and limit (project funded by British Academy/Leverhulme). Additionally, I have published a range of essays identifying ways in which ideas and practices from performance can help identify, reflect on and address urgent contemporary challenges. In particular, I reflect on new ways of responding to the effects of climate change. Performing City Resilience (emergency planning, hazard mitigation and resilience strategy) Performing Place: Architecture and Environment My teaching is grounded in my current and recent research into performance, place, and resilience, including my experience of working with partner organisations and collaborators. Alonside teaching that unpacks specific topics from this research, I invite students to identify methodologies and practices that will support their work in and beyond their degree. In teaching from my research area, I engage students in processes of identifying and developing their own individual research and professional interests as they progress on their degree.
Dr Luke Heslop Dr Luke Heslop
Email Dr Luke Heslop Lecturer in Anthropology and Global Challenges
I trained in anthropology at the University of Edinburgh (PhD 2015) and was a Fellow at the London School of Economics prior to joining Brunel as a Lecturer in Anthropology. I have worked for many years in Sri Lanka and the Maldives and my research is centred on current trends in development and anthropology around markets, infrastructure, work and labour. My ethnographic work engages with the lived experience of macro-economic and political change and global challenges in emerging economies. I specialise in trade, mobility, and the social life of work in South Asia. More recently my research focus has been on the financialisation of Development, transforming modes of Aid, and the relationship between entrepreneurship and advice. Office hours by appointment. Email luke.heslop@brunel.ac.uk to make an appointment. Mercantile Kinship My doctoral research traced the lives entrepreneurial families in a bustling market town in central Sri Lanka as they started and developed various businesses, built new homes, married, and campaigned for political office. Publications that stemmed from this research speak to the anthropology of money and economic sociology, kinship, class, and intergenerational relationships, as well as to a burgeoning anthropological interest in politics and protest. I am currently preparing a monograph about life, work, and social change among the trading families I have known since 2003. The monograph builds upon a body of anthropological literature on the production of kinship, class, and politics in Sri Lanka against the backdrop of a broader set of social transformations that have shaped Sri Lanka’s tumultuous post-colonial modernity; notably the war and development, economic and agrarian change, and Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism. Roads, infrastructure and connectivity 2015-2017: I worked on the ERC-funded project ‘Roads and the politics of thought: Ethnographic approaches to infrastructure in South Asia’. My research explores the development of connective infrastructure – roads, bridges, and inter-island causeways – and its social and environmental effects on the Maldives archipelago and beyond. This project encompasses a number of South Asian sites and is grounded in conceptions of the state’s responsibility for national development and modernity through planned connectivity between cities and towns from the Himālaya to the Indian Ocean. From this project I have published material on infrastructure financing, road building on coralline ecologies, archipelagic connectivity and Indian Ocean mobility. For more information on this project see: International Development and ecosystems of advice Ethnographic Solutions to Inequalities in South Asian Advice Ecosystems takes a closer look at the evolving 'landscapes of advice' in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and using the insights gained, aims to work with our partners to build ideas that can inform more effective and inclusive modes of advising. The project aims to better understand these processes to facilitate knowledge exchange from the ground-level of business advice ecosystems and co-produce a resource ‘toolkit’ for recipients and practitioners to address inequalities within advice delivery. By mapping and studying advice ecosystems alongside our partners in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, we intend to channel the untapped potential of practitioner-academic partnerships into capacity-building actions on the ground, leading to better advice relationships for people who need them the most. South Asia in West London I am currently developing a new research agenda which explores life and work for South Asian diasporas in West London. Drawing on the expertise within the South Asia Studies Research Group at Brunel, the focus on South Asia in West London cuts across three broad areas of research: Food and nutrition (this will build on our work on the anthropology of food and health in India, with the intention of including Brunel scholars in Life Sciences working on nutrition) Education and employment (this already includes separate strands on work being done in Anthropology, Geography, History, and Education) Business and Entrepreneurship (this draws on work being done in Anthropology, in History, and at the Business School) As part of this project I am producing a podcast series: This project is being supported by a small grant from the Institute for Communities and Society. Sri Lanka The Maldives The Indian Ocean Modules Convening I currently convene the compulsory second year module, Practising Anthropology. I co-convene: Research Methods in Anthropology (UG - with Prof James Staples) ; Ethnographic Research Methods (PG - with Dr Andrew Beatty); Strategic Communications (PG - With Anita Howarth and Billur Ozgul). Addtional teaching: I am currently contributing teaching to the following UG and PG modules modules: Facing the Unfamilliar: Ethnographic Field work encounters (UG); South Asia - Societies and Development (PG); Religion and Power in South Asian History (PG); Anthropology of International Development (PG). Programme Development I am Co-Director of the new postgraduate programme: MSc Global South Asia Studies - please email luke.heslop@brunel.ac.uk or james.staples@brunel.ac.uk for application information.
Dr Emily Horton Dr Emily Horton
Email Dr Emily Horton Senior Lecturer
Emily received her PhD from the University of Nottingham in 2009 and worked at various universities, including Brunel, as a Visiting Lecturer before taking on a full-time staff position at Brunel in 2018. As a lecturer in English, specialising in World Literatures in English, she is particularly interested in exploring globalization, cosmopolitanism and diasporic literatures, often through the lens of trauma and affect theories. She has also published in relation to contemporary British literature, Gothic fiction, and queer writing, again often in relation to the abovesaid theories. Academia.edu page: Emily's research reflects her interest in the connections between contemporary literature and recent critical theory examining representations of trauma and affect as a means to contemplating alternative modes of socio-political belonging. Emily's monograph, Contemporary Crisis Fictions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), focuing on the writing of Graham Swift, Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro, explores a newly emergent genre of literary fiction concerned to negotiate the crises impelled by neoliberal power. Rejecting popular postmodern and metafictional readings in favour of a combined historical materialist and affect theory approach, she reads these texts as instigating new modes of critical cosmopolitan thinking, which both reflect and respond to the cultural ambiguities of the contemporary period. Her edited collection on The 1980s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2014), co-edited with Philip Tew and Leigh Wilson, offers a comprehensive re-reading of 1980s British fiction from a post-millennial, world-oriented perspective, incorporating new critical theory to reconsider issues of form, genre, style and to animate new discussion regarding the nature of contemporary literary creativity, experiment, and reading practice from the 1980s on-wards. Her edited collection on Ali Smith (Bloomsbury, 2013), co-edited with Monica Germanà, explores Smith’s fiction with respect to a number of critically prescient themes, including contemporary feminism and queer theory, consumer space and ‘non-place’, spectral time and temporality, Scottish devolution, the contemporary publishing industry, and recent developments in deconstructive and cosmopolitan narrative ethics. More broadly, Emily's publications mirror her concern with late twentieth and early twenty-first century literature’s on-going encounter with socio-political struggle, often in relation to the crises impelled by globalisation. 20th and 21st Century Anglophone World Literature 20th and 21st Century British Literature Trauma and Affect Theory Globalisation, Cosmopolitanism and Diasporic Literature The Gothic Tradition (19th-21st Century) Spatial Theory Queer Writing Since beginning teaching at Brunel in 2009, Emily has taught across all levels of the department, including a range of modules both inside and beyond her research specialism, and encompassing undergraduate and postgraduate courses. She currently convenes two key modules: World Literature (Level 1) and The Women's Movement (Level 2). Previously, she acted as a principle lecturer on Postmillennial Fiction (MA), Post-war and Late Twentieth Century Writing (Level 3), Learning London (Level 1), and Popular Fictions (Level 1), as well as lecturing on Modernism (Level 2) and Postcolonialism (Level 2). She also supervises final year undergraduates.
Dr Deborah Jones Dr Deborah Jones
Email Dr Deborah Jones Reader in Education
Deborah is Reader in Education in the School of Sport and Education at Brunel University. Having gained a BA degree in Philosophy from the University of Wales, she went on to complete a PGCE in Urban studies at the college of St Mark & St John, Plymouth. Subsequently she undertook several roles within schools (both teaching and management) and was part of an EAL team. She fuelled her interest in the teaching and learning of literacy by undertaking an MA in Linguistics in Education. She then joined the Inspectorate and Advisory service for a London borough where she headed up the national LINC (Language in the National Curriculum) project. Following this she coordinated National Curriculum assessment for a Local Authority, developing policy and leading INSET for teachers and headteachers. During this time she undertook consultancy for several universities and became an assessor for the NPQH (National Professional Qualification for Headship). Throughout her time at Brunel University she has undertaken a range of management and leadership roles including Equality Champion for the University and Director of Teaching and Learning within the Department. She has run the Doctor of Education programme and also established the BA programme in Hong Kong for teachers. Her doctorate focussed on gender in relation to the perceptions and experiences of male students within the early years of schooling. Subsequently research has explored the lived experiences of both female and male teachers and headteachers in the primary sector. She has a keen interest in oracy in education and was co-investigator on the ‘Enhancing Mathematical Learning through Talk’ project which explored subject knowledge and teaching expertise of KS1 teachers, through the collaborative study of spoken language and talk-in-interaction. More recently she has undertaken United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) funded research into the nature of interaction between teachers and children in KS2 and the development of high quality dialogue within feedback exchanges. Deborah is European Editor for the international journal Early Child Development and Care and has served on the National Primary Commitee for the National Association of Teachers of English (NATE). As a member of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), British Educational Research Association (BERA) and NAEYCTE she has given multiple research presentations in the UK and abroad. Subsequent work has taken a phenomenological approach and explored the lived experiences of male and female head teachers. This research explores issues connected with men in a variety of care and educational roles with respect to young children. Her book ‘Men in the Lives of Young Children’ published by Routledge, contextualised this work, drawing upon her network of international contributors. Her current research focus is on the narratives of British Asian headteachers. Additionally, Deborah has undertaken research and evaluation for both charities and industry which have investigated the interface between policy and practice. Among these have been 2 national British Telecom schools literacy projects. The first focussed on ‘Reading Volunteers’ and explored the quality and level of interaction of BT volunteers with teachers, headteachers, children and the wider school community. The second, ‘Partners in Communication’ was an innovative quality development scheme which aimed to enable both primary and secondary schools to improve their approach to communication in relation to pupils, staff, governors, parents and external bodies. These projects have provided innovative national models of support and practice. Deborah is European Editor for the Journal Early Child Development and Care and is a regular reviewer for a variety of academic journals. She currently has 8 PhD students at various stages of their work and has examined doctoral work externally at a number of universities. She has a consistent track record of presenting her work at international conferences including the American Education research Association (AERA), the British Education Research Association (BERA), the the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (NAECTE) and INET. Research group(s) Pedagogy and Professional Education (PAPE) Deborah has taken a feminist poststructuralist approach to research and enquiry. She is concerned with ways of exploring the production of professional teacher identities both at the initial stage of formation, and also in relation to primary headship. Key areas of research have involved the perceptions and experiences of male teachers in the early years of schooling and the perceptions of female teachers who have worked with men in this context. Deborah’s career trajectory spans from the teaching of children to the teaching of adults but her philosophy of teaching & learning has remained the same. She is committed to a social constructivist approach where both children and adults are enabled to become independent in educational contexts, to become reflective on what and how they understand and where ultimately, they become empowered as learners. She has a keen interest in the teaching of literacy- specifically oracy and metacognition, exploring this in her books ‘Unlocking Speaking and Listening’ and ‘Metacognitive Approaches to Developing Oracy’. Additionally she has been Chief External Examiner at several universities with special reference to English. Deborah has a wide experience of teaching, management and leadership both at course team level and across the School of Sport and Education. She has been programme leader for the BA (QTS), the BEd in Hong Kong and currently leads the Doctor of Education programme within the School of Education at Brunel. She has been Director of Teaching and Learning for the School and led the PGCE Primary Course through several successful Ofsted inspections. Deborah has undertaken several roles within the institution through membership of the University Teaching and Learning Committee, Disciplinary Board and Senate. She was part of the University’s strategic plan Development Group and ran consultation workshops in relation to this. In addition she led a university wide working group auditing provision for CPD culminating in a new vision for its development. As Equality and Diversity Champion for the University she undertook a wide range of duties promoting equality within and beyond Brunel’s rich and diverse community.
Professor Jago Morrison Professor Jago Morrison
Email Professor Jago Morrison Professor - English
Jago Morrison is a specialist in contemporary literature. His key areas of expertise are: Contemporary Fiction and Security. Postcolonial Writing in English, with a special interest in Chinua Achebe. Contemporary women’s writing. Jago welcomes expressions of interest from research students interested in studying to MPhil and PhD level in his specialist areas, including from candidates wishing to pursue critical/creative research projects. Jago is an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Peer Reviewer and represents Brunel at the Council for College and University English (CCUE). Jago’s current research explores literature and security. Recent and forthcoming pieces explore themes of radicalisation, terrorism and the changing security paradigm since 9/11. Read Morrison on Jihadi Fiction here. His first book Contemporary Fiction (Routledge, 2003) is a standard in the field. Exploring nine major international writers, it draws out a number of common themes and concerns ranging from the crisis of historical representation, through the changing nature of ‘race’ discourse to literary deconstructions of gender and the body. His second book Scandalous Fictions (ed. with Susan Watkins, Palgrave 2006) re-examines fiction of the twentieth century through a canon of iconic works - from Ulysses to The Satanic Verses - which troubled the public sphere through scandal. The Post-War British Literature Handbook (ed. With Katharine Cockin, Continuum, 2010) is a book for students, introducing the (sometimes dauntingly complex) field of contemporary criticism in a user-friendly way. The book includes sample readings of key texts, keynote chapters by influential critics and overviews of all the major critical approaches. In postcolonial studies, Jago is an acknowledgted expert on the work of Chinua Achebe. His monograph Chinua Achebe (Manchester University Press, 2014) offers a complete rereading of the writer and his work, significantly shifting the terms of debate on one of contemporary world literature's most important figures. Jago has also written a more student-friendly critical guide, The Fiction of Chinua Achebe (Palgrave, 2007), providing the most wide-ranging introduction to the field of Achebe studies available. Jago has also co-written a policy report with the leading think tank DEMOS, exploring changing attitudes to ageing through fiction and reader response analysis. Coming of Age (with Bazalgette, Holden, Tew & Hubble, Demos, 2011) is an innovative example of applied literary studies, exposing the gaps between the lived experience of twenty-first century ageing and the outdated assumptions that often underpin public policy debate. Contemporary Fiction and Security. Postcolonial Writing in English, with a special interest in Chinua Achebe. Contemporary Women’s Writing. Jago teaches post-war and contemporary writing, including postcolonialism. He is interested in innovative pedagogies, especially new forms of assessment, and has pioneered the use of the audio-visual essay as an alternative to traditional criticism. He supervises research to PhD level and welcomes applications in his areas of expertise. Modules currently taught: EN1702 Texts, Contexts, Intertexts - EN2011 Postcolonial Writing - EN3069 Post-War and Late Twentieth Century Writing Activities: Selected Publications ‘Ageing Re-imagined: Exploring Older Women’s Attitudes to Ageing through Reader Response’ Contemporary Women’s Writing, 6:1 (forthcoming, Jan 2012). Coming of Age (London: Demos, 2011). With Louise Bazalgette, John Holden, Nick Hubble & Philip Tew. www.demos.co.uk/publications/comingofage The Post-War British Literature Handbook, eds. Cockin, K. & Morrison, J. (London: Continuum, 2010) The Fiction of Chinua Achebe: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) ‘ ‘Who cares about gender at a time like this?’ Love, Sex and the Problem of Jeanette Winterson’ Journal of Gender Studies, 15:2 (2006) 169-80. Scandalous Fictions: The Twentieth Century Novel in the Public Sphere, eds. Morrison, J. and Watkins, S. (Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) ‘Imagined Biafras: Fabricating Nation in Nigerian Civil War Writing’ ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature 36:1-2 (2005), 5-26. Contemporary Fiction (London: Routledge, 2003)
Dr Ermioni Xanthopoulou Dr Ermioni Xanthopoulou
Email Dr Ermioni Xanthopoulou Senior Lecturer in Law
Ermioni is a Senior Lecturer in law and Director of Research for Brunel Law School . She is currently teaching EU, migration and refugee law. Her research focuses on (EU) criminal, migration, and asylum law, as well as human rights. Ermioni was granted the Athena Swan Research Award 2022-2023 to conduct her individual research project on externalising trends of asylum law. Together with Dr. Nayyeri, they published evidence that the government's asylum policy was unlauful. Ermioni also participated in ITFLOWS, a three-year long research project funded by European Commission's Horizon 2020, as a member of the BUL team assessing human rights challenges posed by technological tools predicting migration. Moreober, she is the author of 'The European Arrest Warrant in a context of distrust: Is the Court taking rights seriously?'. European Law Journal, pp. 218 - 233. ISSN: 1351-5993 She is also the author of 'Fundamental Rights and Mutual Trust in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: A Role for Proportionality?' published with Hart Publishing in 2020 and of several other publications. Her article, 'Mutual Trust and Rights in EU Criminal and Asylum Law: Three Phases of Evolution and the Unchartered Territory beyond Blind Trust', was awarded the 2017 Common Market Law Review Prize for young academics. Ermioni conducted her doctoral research at King's College London (2012-2017) with a scholarship from the Centre of European Law. Crime, security, migration, asylum, human rights. EU area of freedom security and justice, EU Criminal law, EU asylum and migration law, EU human rights and constitutional law. Publications E Xanthopoulou 'The European Arrest Warrant in a context of distrust: Is the Court taking rights seriously?' (2023) European Law Journal E Xanthopoulou & M Nayyeri 'Written evidence on human rights of asylum seekers' (2022) Parliament Human Rights Joint Committee E Xanthopoulou, ‘Mapping the EU’s Externalisation Devices: Repulsion, Emergency and Neo-coloniality’ (2023) (under peer-review with European Journal of Migration and Law) Ermioni is the author of 2018) 'Mutual trust and rights in EU criminal and asylum law: Three phases of evolution and the uncharted territory beyond blind trust'. Common Market Law Review, 55 (2). pp. 489 - 509. ISSN: 0165-0750 that won the prize for Young Academics in 2017 by the journal. She is also the author of Fundamental Rights and Mutual Recognition in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: A Role for Proportionality (Hart, forthcoming) ‘International Fight against Impunity and EU Counter-Terrorism Law: The Case of Foreign Terrorist Fighters’ co-authored with T. Konstadinides (peer-reviewed chapter for the edited book by Dr. Montaldo and Dr. Marin, The Fight Against Impunity in EU Law 2020, Hart Publishing) ‘Legal Uncertainty, Distrust and Injustice in Brexit Asylum Cooperation’ (peer-reviewed chapter for the edited book by Ahmed and Fahey, On Brexit: Law, Justice and Injustices 2020, Edgar) ‘The quest for proportionality for European Arrest Warrant and fundamental rights protection in a mutual recognition environment’ (2015) New Journal of European Criminal Law32-52 Other "Mutual Trust and Fundamental Rights in the Dublin System: A Role for Proportionality?" Odysseus Blog (2021) 'From mutual trust to mutual distrust in the EU’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice' REAL Blog (2021) 'Brexit spells sliding safeguarding duties' (2019) Britain must commit to upholding civil liberties if the EU is to agree on security co-operation after Brexit (The Conversation, 2018) Radu judgment: A lost opportunity and a story of how the mutual trust obsession shelved human rights (KSLR EU Law Blog, 2013) European Union Law Migrant, State and the Law Refugee Policy and Practice
Dr Pin Lean Lau Dr Pin Lean Lau
Email Dr Pin Lean Lau Senior Lecturer in Bio Law
Pin Lean is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Bio-Law at Brunel Law School, joining Brunel University London in January 2021. A former practising barrister and solicitor, she was a corporate-commercial attorney working primarily in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, technology law, and general corporate advisory matters. Prior to joining Brunel University, she was an attorney on secondment with the Legal Services Team (based in Belgrave, London) in the General Counsel's Organization of American Express International, where she was a key senior legal counsel for the Asia-Pacific region. She obtained her SJD in Comparative Constitutional Law from Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, in 2019 (nostrified in the UK in 2020), earning highest honours, Summa cum Laude, for her thesis titled 'Comparative Legal Frameworks for Pre-Implantation Genetic Interventions' (which has been written into a monograph published by Springer Switzerland). Pin Lean is the General Manager of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence: Social & Digital Innovations. She is an active member of the Brunel International Law Research Group, Living Avatars Research Group, the Human Rights, Society and the Arts Research Group, and Reproduction Research Group. Externally, she is part of the ELSI2.0 Workspace, an international collaboratory on genomics and society research; a member of the European Association of Health Law (EAHL), and a General Manager of the Interest Group on Supranational Bio-Law of the EAHL; and a member of the Daughters of Themis: International Network of Women Business Scholars. She has held visiting fellowships with the Centre for Health, Law and Emerging Technologies (HeLEX), NDPH (Medical Sciences Division), University of Oxford; the Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences (CELLs) at the University of Hannover, Germany; and participated in the Centre for Ethics and Law in Biomedicine (CELAB) in Central European University, Hungary. Pin Lean also leads the UK & European chapter of the global Responsible Metaverse Alliance as Director of Research; and is an invited member of the United Nations (UN) International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Working Group on the Metaverse, focusing on competition, economics, standards and regulatory aspects of the Metaverse. Her research encompasses European, international, and comparative law for genome editing (with a focus on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, reproductive technologies and women's bodies; and the proliferation of virulent gene-edited pathogens and global bio-security); propertization and commodification studies of genetic materials and biomedical technologies; the ethico-legal governance for artificial intelligence (AI) systems (with a focus on protection of fundamental rights, spatial 'body citizenship' and bio-constitutional implications of the AI-augmented biological human body, and AI in women's health); and technologies horizon scanning and legal future foresighting for new and emerging technologies and environments, such as the Metaverse. She has written widely on topics straddling the fringes of laws, technologies and society, and has been invited as a speaker by many national and international organisations, including on podcasts relating to technologies, and media interviews with news organisations in the UK, US, France, Germany, Brazil, Hungary, Malaysia, Japan, and India. Recently, she was invited as an expert panelist by the UK regulatory alliance, the Digital Cooperation Regulation Forum (DRCF) in its first Metaverse Symposium. She has also consulted as an expert with the UK Law Society on technologies and horizon scanning in its Future Worlds 2050 Project. Pin Lean previously consulted on a multi-trust funded project for the World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the OiE (World Organization for Animal Health), on developing and piloting of a Tripartite One Health Assessment Tool for Antimicrobial Resistance Relevant Legislation. She also completed a project with researchers from the EAHL to produce a Joint Statement for the European Commission's 2021 Thematic Networks, with a proposal for Health as a Fundamental Value, as part of the EU Pharmaceutical Strategy. She led a project on AI-driven technologies in women's healthcare, funded by the Institute for Communities & Society. Besides this, she is also working on several book projects, including health and IP rights in EU health law, and EU health databases; on the EU Draft Law for Artificial Intelligence and data protection; on AI gender data gap and data feminism; and on FemTech and effective AI stewardship for women's healthcare. She is also a contributor in the EuroGCT Project (European Gene & Cell Therapy Project) funded by the European Commission's Horizon 2020 Work Programme, contributing in the area of data misuse and mission creep in EU health laws relating to patient involvement and patient data. She was the keynote speaker, with the presentation titled 'Hidden Figures: Algorithmic Biases in Health and Medical AI - European Law Perspectives' at the XVI Inter-Autonomous Conference on the Legal Protection of Patients: Science and Data as Ingredients for the Transformation of Healthcare Organisations. She led a European Commission Health Policy Platform project, together with civil society organisation, Health Action International, to produce a Joint Statement and policy recommendations for the European Commission 2022 Thematic Networks, on the impact of artificial intelligence on health outcomes (reducing health inequalities) of marginalised groups in the EU - presenting this report to the European Commission in Luxembourg in April 2023. She currently leads the Stakeholder Network for this project on the EU Health Policy Platform. From August 2023, Pin Lean leads a project (Lex-HMT) focusing on legal and regulatory aspects of immersive biomedical technologies in virtual worlds, and is expected to provide oral evidence to the AI All-Parliamentary Group (AI APPG) in the UK House of Lords in November 2023. Pin Lean's research interests encompass European, international and comparative law for genome editing (with a focus on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, reproductive technologies and women's bodies; and the proliferation of virulent gene-edited pathogens and global bio-security); propertization and commodication studies and debates of genetic materials and biomedical technologies; and the ethico-legal governance of AI systems (with a focus on AI in healthcare, and the protection of individual rights and fundamental liberties in AI, spatial 'body citizenship', and bio-constitutional concerns of the AI-augmented biological human body; and AI, gender data gap and data feminism in women's healthcare); and technologies horizon scanning and legal future foresighting for new and emerging technologies and environments, such as the Metaverse. Bio-constitutionalism and human rights implications of new and emerging biomedical technologies (gene editing, artificial intelligence, 3D organ bioprinting, xenotransplantation, cryo-preservation, reproductive cloning, etc) Bioethics and feminist legal approaches to bioethics European, international and comparative law for genome editing technologies (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and reproductive technologies) Ethico-legal governance of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, particularly AI in healthcare Protection of human rights and fundamental liberties in the Metaverse and Web3.0 Admitted as a Fellow of the HEA (March 2022) Modules Taught:- Contract Law Tort Law Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Law (AI and Health in the Metaverse) Artificial Intelligence, Bias and Power Law, Science, and Technology Studies (genome editing technologies) Bioethics and Biomedical Law
Dr Anna Tuckett Dr Anna Tuckett
Email Dr Anna Tuckett Senior Lecturer in Anthropology
Dr. Anna Tuckett received her PhD from the London School of Economics in 2014. She specialises in political and legal anthropology, with a specific focus on migration in Italy and the UK. Anna is particularly interested in how people experience and manage the state, law and bureaucracy in their everyday lives. Her book, Rules, Paper, Status: Migrants and Precarious Bureaucracy in Contemporary Italy (2018), published by Stanford University Press was awarded the 2019 William A. Douglass Prize in Europeanist Anthropology. It examines the ways in which immigration laws and policies work on the ground in one of Europe’s biggest receiving countries. It analyses the complex processes of inclusion and exclusion that are produced through encounters with immigration law as migrants attempt to obtain legal status, renew permits and be reunited with family members. Anna's work offers new insights into established anthropological debates concerning the state, brokerage, subjectivity and ethics through the lens of a high-profile contemporary social issue, while also providing unique perspectives on debates around legality, illegality and integration. Anna’s most recent research was conducted in London as part of a collaborative ESRC-funded project entitled ‘An ethnography of advice: between market, society and the declining welfare state’. Exploring the emergence of unofficial and unregulated citizenship test schools in London, Anna's study examines the lived realities of integration policies within a wider context of austerity measures and state reconfiguration. Prior to joining Brunel, Anna held teaching and research positions at LSE.