Jeremy Gilbert

Education

1995 -1999 DPhil in Media and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex

‘After Postmodernism: Cultures, Community and Radical Democracy’

Successfully defended June 2000, no corrections.

Supervisors: Dr James Donald and Professor William Outhwaite

Examiners: Professor Ernesto Laclau and Professor Paul Smith

1994 – 1995 MA Critical Theory (Distinction)

University of Sussex Graduate Research Centre in the Humanities

1991- 1994 BA (Hons) Cultural Studies (1st) University of East London

Primary and Secondary Education at various local state schools, mainly in northwest England, plus two school years spent at state schools in metropolitan Atlanta.

Academic Employment

Sep 2020 – present Professor of Cultural and Political Theory, UEL (0.45)

Jan-May 2020: Visiting Professor in the Humanities, Cogut Institute for the Humanities,

Brown University, Providence RI, USA.

2013-2020 Professor of Cultural and Political Theory, UEL

2008-2013 Reader in Cultural Studies, UEL

2004– 2008 Senior Lecturer & Programme Leader, MA Cultural Studies, UEL

2000 - 2004 Lecturer in Cultural Studies, UEL

1997 – 2000 Part-time Lecturer in Cultural Studies and Media Studies, UEL

1995 – 1997 Part-time tutor in Media Studies and Cultural Studies,

University of Sussex and University of East London (UEL).

Academic Publications

My work has been translated into Italian, German, Portuguese, Turkish, Polish, Korean, Spanish and French.

Books

Jeremy Gilbert & Alex Williams Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (Verso 2022)

Publicity included: an hour-long interview on Majority Report and multi-episode interview with Politics, Theory, Other podcast.

Jeremy Gilbert, Twenty-First Century Socialism (Polity 2020)

Guardian ‘Book of the Day’

Jeremy Gilbert (ed) Neoliberal Culture (Lawrence & Wishart 2016)

Jeremy Gilbert, Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism (Pluto 2014).

Jeremy Gilbert, Anticapitalism and Culture: Popular Politics and Radical Theory (Berg 2008).

Timothy Bewes & Jeremy Gilbert (eds.) Cultural Capitalism: Politics after New Labour, Lawrence & Wishart, December 2000

Jeremy Gilbert & Ewan Pearson Discographies: Dance Music, Culture, and the Politics of Sound (Routledge 1999)

Translated into Spanish Cultura y politicas de la musica dance. Paidos (2003)

Translations

Maurizio Lazaratto Experimental Politics: Work, Welfare and Creativity in the Neoliberal Epoch (MIT Press, 2018)

This is a collective translation with different contributing translators responsible for varying amounts. I am the main translator, sole editor and author of the 10,000-word introduction.

Special Issues of New Formations

Living with Extinction, double-issue (2022), with David Bennett, Mandy Merck, Ben Highmore, Jenny Taylor and Rebecca Bramall.

This Conjuncture: For Stuart Hall, 3-volume issue (2019-20)

Societies of Control double issue (2015) (with Andrew Goffey)

Neoliberal Culture, issue of New Formations (2013, later reprinted as a book).

Deleuzian Politics? (2010) (with Chrysanthi Nigianni).

For this issue I also wrote a long introductory article, translated an essay by Véronique Bergen, and co-ordinated and edited a round-table discussion

Diana and Democracy (1999) with David Glover, Cora Kaplan, Jenny Bourne Taylor and Wendy Wheeler.

NB: These specified issues of New Formations are the ones in which I’ve taken a lead curatorial and editorial role; I’ve also overseen many general issues of the journal in my capacity as journal editor, as well as mentoring and overseeing the activities of many guest editors.

Journal Articles

‘Why Wouldn’t They Be Reconciled? Corbyn’s Leadership and the Recalcitrance of the Parliamentary Labour Party Political Quarterly June 2021

‘The End of the Road: From Bennism to Corbynism’ South Atlantic Quarterly January 2021

Platforms and Potency: Democracy and Collective Agency in the Age of Social Media’ in Open Cultural Studies, December 2020

‘This Conjuncture: For Stuart Hall’ in New Formations March 2019

‘Disaffected Consent: that post-democratic feeling’ in Soundings Summer 2015

‘What Kind of Thing is Neoliberalism?’, in New Formations November 2013

‘The Pedagogy of the Body: Affect and Collective Individuation in the Classroom and on the Dancefloor’ in Educational Philosophy and Theory, November 2012

‘After 68: Narratives of the New Capitalism’ in New Formations, Autumn 2008

‘Against the Commodification of Everything: Anti-Consumerist Cultural Studies in the Age of Ecological Crisis’ in Cultural Studies, September 2008

‘The Complexity of the Social’ Soundings, Spring 2007

‘Public Secrets: ‘Being-With’ In an Era of Perpetual Disclosure’ in Cultural Studies, January 2007

‘Dyer and Deleuze: Post-Structuralist Cultural Criticism’ in New Formations 58, Summer 2006

‘The Forum and the Market: The Complexity of the Social and the Struggle for Democracy’ Ephemera: Critical dialogues on Organization May 2005, Volume 5, Number 3

Signifying Nothing: ‘Culture’, ‘Discourse’ and the Sociality of Affect in Culture Machine 6 (2004) (http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/frm_f1.htm). Later collected in The Routledge Reader on the Sociology of Music.

‘The Second Wave: the specificity of New Labour neo-liberalism in Soundings 26 (Lawrence & Wishart 2004)

‘Small Faces: The Tyranny of Celebrity in post-Oedipal culture’ in Mediactive 2 (Lawrence & Wishart 2004)

‘A Certain Ethics of Openness: Radical Democratic Cultural Studies’ in Strategies Nov 2001 (USA)

‘Against the Empire: Thinking the Social and (dis)locating agency ‘before, across and beyond any national determination’ in Parallax Vol. 7 No3, 2001

‘Soundtrack for an Uncivil Society: Rave Culture, The Criminal Justice Act and the Politics of Modernity’ in New Formations Summer 1997

Interviews / Dialogues in New Formations

‘What is Austerity?’ - Interview/discussion with James Meadway (economist at New Economics Foundation / chief advisor to John McDonnell M.P.), New Formations summer 2016.

‘Post-post-Fordism in the Era of Platforms’ - interview with economist Robin Murray in New Formations, summer 2015

(with Mark Fisher) ‘Capitalist Realism, Neoliberal Hegemony: A Dialogue’ New Formations 2013

Book Chapters

(Forthcoming) ‘For an Aesthetics of Solidarity’ in Dorota Sajewska (ed) Crisis and Communitas (Routledge 2023).

‘Culture’ 10,000-word entry in The Sage Handbook of Marxism (2021). A longer version is available at https://jeremygilbertwriting.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/a-brief-history-of-marxist-cultural-theory/

‘The Commons, the Public and the Aesthetics of Solidarity’ in Cornelia Solfrank, Felix Stalder and Shusha Niederberger (eds) Aesthetic of the Commons (Diaphanes 2021).

‘The Absolute Corbyn’ in Mark Perryman (ed) (2017) The Corbyn Effect. Lawrence & Wishart.

‘Modes of anti-neoliberalism: moralism, Marxism and 21st Century Socialism’ in Bryn Jones & Mike O’Donnell (eds) (2017) Alternatives to Neoliberalism: Towards Equality and Democracy.

‘The Question of Leadership’ in Verso Books (ed.) (2016) Corbyn and the Future of Labour: A Verso Report . Verso.

‘Break / Flow / Escape / Capture: The Energy and Impotence of the Hardcore Continuum’ in Jon Stratton and Nabeel Zuberi (2015) Black Music in Britain Since 1945, Ashgate.

‘What Does Democracy Feel Like? Form, Function, Affect, and the Materiality of the Sign’ in Lincoln Dahlberg & Sean Phelan (eds) (2011) Discourse Theory and Media Politics, Palgrave

‘Culture, Creativity and Continuity in the Sonic Sphere’, (translated into German) in Rosa Reitsamer & Wolfgang Fichna (eds) (2011) They Say I'm Different...: Popularmusik, Szenen und ihre AkteurInnen, Löcker.

‘Beyond Gesture, Beyond Pragmatism’ (with Jo Littler) in What is Radical Politics Today, ed. Jonathan Pugh (2010), Routledge.

‘A Radical Future’ in Ben Little (ed) Radical Futures: Politics for the Next Generation (e-book published by Lawrence & Wishart), January 2010

‘All the Right Questions, All the Wrong Answers’ in Paul Bowman & Richard Stamp (eds) (2007) The Truth of Zizek, Continuum

‘Cultural Studies and Anti-Capitalism’ in Birchall & Hall (eds) (2006) New Cultural Studies, Edinburgh University Press

‘More than a Woman: Becoming-woman on the disco floor’ Rosa Reitsamer & Rupert Weinzier (eds) (2005) Female Consequences. feminismus, antirassismus, popmusik

‘Music Studies’ entry for The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory: 2003, The English Association, 2005

‘Becoming-Music: The rhizomatic moment of improvisation’ in Buchanan, Ian & Marcel Swiboda (eds) Deleuze and Music, Edinburgh University Press, 2004

‘Friends and Enemies: Which Side is Cultural Studies On?’ in Paul Bowman (ed.) Interrogating Cultural Studies, Pluto 2003

‘Music Studies’ entry for The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory: 2002, The English Association, 2004

‘Music Studies’ entry for The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory: 2001, The English Association, 2003

(With Timothy Bewes) ‘Politics after Defeat’ in Cultural Capitalism: Politics after New Labour, Lawrence & Wishart, 2000

‘In Defence of Discourse Analysis’ in Cultural Capitalism: Politics after New Labour, Lawrence & Wishart, 2000

‘Beyond the Hegemony of New Labour’ in Cultural Capitalism: Politics after New Labour, Lawrence & Wishart, 2000

‘White Light/ White Heat; Jouissance Beyond Gender in the Velvet Underground’ in, Andrew Blake (ed.) (1999) Living Through Pop. Routledge.

'Pop, Politics and Populism' in Anne Coddington & Mark Perryman (eds.) (1998) The

Moderniser's Dilemma. Lawrence & Wishart.

Book reviews

‘Having a Laugh’ Review of Paolo Virno Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation in Radical PhilosophyMarch / April 2009
Contributed to review symposium on Mark Bevir’s New Labour: a Critique in History of the Human Sciences 2006
Review of Hardt and Negri’s Multitude in New Formations 2005
Review of Howarth, Norvall and Savrakakis (eds) Discourse Theory and Political Analysis in New Formations Summer 2002
‘Becoming Stuart’ Review of Paul Gilroy, Lawrence Grossberg and Angela McRobbie (eds) Without Guarantees: In Honour of Stuart Hall in New Formations Spring 2002
Review of Deconstructing Disney by Eleanor Byrne and Martin McQuillan in Textual Practice 15 (2) 2001
‘A Question of Sport? Butler contra Laclau contra Zizek’ review of Butler, Laclau, Zizek Contingency, Hegemony Universality in New Formations Autumn 2001
1999 Review article ‘Living in Electric Dreams’ on recent publications on electric media, Continuum, 13 (3).

Other writing

‘Anti-Bourgeois for What? A Reflective Response to Gary Hall’s ‘Anti-Bourgeois Theory’’ in Media Theory, November 9th, 2020.

‘Cultural Studies als Konjunktur- und Konstellationsanalyse. Zur Einleitung & Das Kulturelle in politischen Konjunkturen. Repliken & Respondenz’ in Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften (Bd. 2 2019). (I wrote the initial essay for this roundtable discussion and responded to the replies).

(with Jason Read) ‘Talkin’ Transindividuation and Collectivity: A Dialogue Between Jason Read and Jeremy Gilbert’ in Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry. Vol 1, Issue 4 2019.

‘Other Accumulations’ Text for Dutch Art Institute project ‘Restoration of a Wall’ by Viki Semou, April 2010

‘Music is Power’ in Art Press 2 (France): December 2009 (commissioned article published in both English and French).

Media work and publications

I have a public profile as a political and media commentator and my work is regularly cited by prominent figures in the press. In July 2016, for instance, writing in the Guardian, George Monbiot described me as ‘one of the crucial thinkers charting a new direction for the British left’.

Podcasts

Co-host, ACFM, a monthly podcast on the Novara Media platform covering topics in contemporary culture, media, politics and philosophy. Running since 2019, we now have an average of 13,000 monthly listeners.

Co-host, Love is the Message. This fortnightly podcast with my colleague Professor Tim Lawrence is a political history of Western popular music and dance culture since the 1960s and has an average of 2,000 listeners per episode.

Host, Culture, Power, Politics. This is an occasional series of free public courses on contemporary politics and theory, including events I organised for the Centre for Cultural Studies Research at UEL. Listeners from very diverse backgrounds have described this to me as having had a very significant impact on their intellectual development.

I have been a guest on numerous podcasts, including being interviewed for Russell Brand’s podcast (Nov 21) and for The Owen Jones Show, several times for the Politics, Theory, Other podcast, and for a discussion of my concept of ‘the long ‘90s’ on the Utopian Horizons podcast

I was also the ‘Resident Expert’ for the podcast The Beginner’s Guide to the Labour Party 2016 -2017. See: https://www.acast.com/abeginnersguidetothelabourparty.

Journalism, commentary and articles

A selection of my writing:

‘Big Tech is failing. The future of democracy depends on what happens next.’ Open Democracy December 2nd2022
‘The Power of the Platform’ New Statesman October 27th 2022

· ‘Britain is crying out for radical solutions, but Labour still thinks it’s in the 1990s’ Guardian opinion, September 24th, 2022.

· ‘Union boss Mick Lynch is a media star – and Labour has much to learn about why’ Guardian opinion, June 23rd

‘We lost because we weren’t big enough: Where now for Anglo-American socialism? Open Democracy, September 2020.
Book-length series of articles analysing the decline of Corbynism 2017-9, published in Open Democracy January 2020.
‘The Bennites’s Revenge: how Jeremy Corbyn and his allies survived political exile’ New Statesman January 14th 2018 (print and online)
‘An Epochal Election: Welcome to the Era of Platform Politics’ Open Democracy August 1st 2017
‘Labour can win: but first it must explain what Corbynism means’ The Guardian (print and online) July 24th 2017
‘Politics in the Platform Age’ Fabian Review (print and online) July 2017
‘Can Labour win back its heartlands? Not by turning blue.’ The Guardian (print and online) May 29th 2017.
‘The Crisis of Cosmopolitanism’ published by Stuart Hall Foundation April 18th 2017
‘Forty Years of Failure: How to challenge the narrative of hard Brexit’. Open Democracy April 24th 2017
The Relations of Force: Power and Politics in Britain Today. April 2017
‘The Progressive Alliance: Why Labour Needs it’ Substantial and influential pamphlet published by Compass March16th 2017
Two substantial memoirs of Mark Fisher published online March 2017: https://jeremygilbertwriting.wordpress.com/2017/03/11/my-friend-mark/
‘A Hijack or a Mutiny? Labour, Leadership and the Left’ September 13th 2016.
‘The Two Souls of Labour’ Jacobin, August 3rd 2016.
Labour’s Crisis and the End of the Two-Party System. Published by the University of Sheffield’s ‘Labour Pains’ project July 28th 2016.
‘Is Momentum a Mob? No - this is what democracy looks like.’ July 18th 2016
‘Facing the Facts: A Progressive Strategy for 2020’. May 11th 2016.
‘The Case for Radical Modernity’ Red Pepper (print and online) January 12th 2016
‘Corbynism and its Futures’ published by Zone Books Near Futures Online (substantial essay - 7,0000+ words) January 2016
‘Corbyn: What’s a Leader Really For? December 1st 2015.
‘A 10-Point Programme for Twenty-First Century Socialism’, Novara Media August 25th 2015.
‘What hope for Labour and the left? The election, the 80s and ‘aspiration’’ (5,000 word essay, shared over 2000 times before counting stopped) July 28th 2015
‘A Broken System Cannot Carry On Forever’ January 30th 2015
Reclaim Modernity: Beyond Markets, Beyond Machines major political pamphlet co-authored with Mark Fisher, published October 2014 by Compass
‘Labour must redefine what it means to be modern’ October 14th 2014
‘How Does Change Happen and How Can we Make It?’ Compass, November 18th 2013

[This essay was commissioned as a keynote discussion document for the ‘Change: How?’ conference organised by Compass and attended by 500 people in London, November 2013]

‘The Value of Culture: A (reluctant) tribute to the BBC’ January 11th 2013 Open Democracy
‘Capitalism, creativity and the crisis in the music industry’ September 14th 2012 Open Democracy
‘Moving on from the Market Society: culture (and cultural studies) in a post-democratic age’, July 13th 2012 Open Democracy
‘After individualism: The unfinished business of New Times’ in Juncture: Journal of the Institute for Public Policy Research, November 2011.
‘Sharing the Pain: The Emotional Politics of Austerity’, Open Democracy January 14th 2011 (early version published on the New Statesman blog; short version re-printed in the edited collection, Fight Back, published by Open Democracy.
‘Elitism, Philistinism and Populism: The Sorry Tale of UK Higher Education Policy’ Open Democracy January 14th 2010. Republished in Eurozine.
‘The Great University Swindle’ Comment is Free January 12th 2010 / Guardian print edition January 13th 2010
‘Postmodernity and the Crisis of Democracy’ Open Democracy May 28th 2009. Translated into Portuguese, Laboratorio De Estudos Do Tempo Presente , July 2009
‘After New Labour, After Neoliberalism: Is Progressive Government Possible?’ Red Pepper, December 2008
‘Not Following in Thatcher’s Footsteps’ Comment is Free, October 28th 2008
‘What Mayor Boris Signals for the Left’ Open Democracy May 22nd 2008
Review of Hardt and Negri’s Multitude in Red Pepper March 2005
‘The New International: A Report from The European Social Forum’ http://www.signsofthetimes.org.uk/ December 2002
‘Harry Potter and the Third Way’ www.OpenDemocracy.net November 28th 2001
‘Lessons We Never Learned From Rave Culture’ The Independent April 02 2001
'The Politics of Pleasure' in Red Pepper magazine, June 1999
‘New Labour’s Blurred Vision’ Signs of the Times discussion paper May 1997
‘Critical Masses’ Signs of the Times discussion paper June 1997

Television interview

BBC 2 Newsnight, studio panel member discussing media political bias, August 22nd 2016

Film interview

Interviewed for London is Burning dir. Haim Bresheeth, 2012.

Radio interviews

·, BBC Radio 4,

Analysis, BBC Radio 4, March 29th 2020

·, BBC Radio 4

·, live studio discussant on legacy of Stuart Hall, BBC Radio 4,

Interviewed for The Museum of Techno, Resonance FM July 12th 2009

Don’t Take Away My Music (interviewee and consultant), BBC Radio 4. March 6th 2007

Nightwaves BBC Radio 3, November 15th 2001

Im Sumpf FM4, Austria, May 12th 2001

Magazine, website and newspaper interviews:

·magazine, Spring / Summer 2018

Quoted in Financial Times May 12th 2017
Interviewed for Open Labour June 15th 2016
Interviewed for Dancedeluxe (Spain) 2004

Interviewed for Springerin (Austria) 2001

·, including Aditya Chakrobortty, Zoe Williams, David Wearing, Ellie Mae O’Hagan, Jeff Sparrow and George Monbiot

Teaching and academic service

Academic service

Supporting consultant to three new university-wide research centres: Centre for Social Change and Justice, Centre for Creative and Cultural Practice, Centre for Well-Being, Community and Inclusion. (2022-)

Departmental Ethics Committee Member 2020-

Co-director and founding committee member, Centre for Cultural Studies Research (2010 -)

Co-coordinator, REF 2021 and REF 2014 entries to Media and Communications Panel

Impact case studies of my work submitted for both REF 2014 and REF 2021

Acting Programme Leader for BA Cultural Studies, September-December 2011

School research seminar coordinator 2012-2016

School Research and Impact committee member 2004-

Peer research mentor to numerous colleagues 2004-

Level 3 Course Tutor, BA Cultural Studies, 2004-2016

Programme Leader, MA Cultural Studies, 2004-2008

Teaching

I have delivered, invented and developed a wide range of modules across Media Studies, Sociology, Music, Advertising, History, Cultural Studies and Politics programmes at both BA and MA level.

My teaching has often been praised for its innovation by external examiners.

Modules include

Political, Cultural and Social Change: 1900-2015
Modern Times: Modernity and Postmodernity
Culture, Power and Resistance in the Twenty-First Century.
Music, Sound and the Body
Culture, Power and Politics
Family Values: Gender, Power and Media
Popular Music: Cultural Theory and Popular Politics
Solidarities: Sharing Freedoms, Inventing Futures
Media Meanings
Media, Culture and Identity
Popular Pleasures: culture, consumption and power
01+

PhDs Supervised to Completion

Jessica Adams Immanence and Emancipation: Bone Deep Participation in the Corbyn Movement, UEL 2023

Maixmillian Spiegel : Only the sun knows: Collectivity and experimentation in popular music, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2021

[external supervisor]

Blake Morris Walking Networks: The Development of an Artistic Medium UEL, 2017

Pierre Raboud Fun et megaphones: Les scènes punks entre marginalité et politisation. Suisse, France, RDA et RFA (1977-1982), Université de Lausanne 2017

[external supervisor]

Alex Williams Complexity and Hegemony UEL, 2016

James McNally British Hip-Hop in the 1980s UEL, 2015

Jamie Hakim Affect and Cultural Change: The Rise of Popular Zionism in the British Jewish Community After the Six Day War (1967), UEL 2012

Laura Junka Politics beyond representation? The al Aqsa Intifada and the late modern subject of colonial occupation, UEL 2011

Andrew Branch Social Mobility, Masculinity and Popular Music, UEL 2010

Jorge Camacho Distributing Power: A Cratological Study of Emerging Technologies for Electric • Power Supply, UEL 2010

Rebecca Bramall On Cultural Amnesia: Critical Theory and Contemporary Discourses of Forgetting, UEL 2007

Post-Doctoral Supervision

I am post-doctoral supervisor and mentor to Carys Hughes, whose research into radical forms of governance and governmentality in the twenty-first century has been fully funded by both the ESRC (2019-2021) and the Leverhulme Trust (2021-2025).

PhD Examination

July 2022 PhD external examiner, University of Kent, thesis on the politics of Deleuzian thought
April 2021 PhD external examiner, Roehampton University, thesis on implications of contemporary philosophical ideas for psychotherapeutic practice
March 2021 PhD external examiner, Brighton University, thesis on the role of concepts of work in the theorization of hegemony
January 2019 PhD external examiner, Goldsmiths, thesis on the conjunctural analysis of Portuguese culture in the 1980s
May 2018 PhD external examiner, Goldsmiths), thesis on the implications of Virno’s thought for the understanding of sustainability
July 2016 PhD examiner, University of Leicester, thesis on the activities of the Plan C activist collective
February 2016 PhD examiner, University of Oxford, thesis on the philosophy of Massimo Cacciari
January 2016 PhD external examiner, University of Leeds, thesis on the politics of music culture in Russia
December 2015 PhD external examiner, Kingston University, thesis on Deleuze and John Cage
November 2012 PhD external examiner, Goldsmiths, thesis on the cultural politics of Berlin nightlife
April 2011 PhD external examiner, Goldsmiths, thesis on ecological approaches to the theorisation of theatricality
July 2010 PhD external examiner, Goldsmiths, thesis on the intellectual legacy of Guy Debord
April 2010 PhD external examiner, Cardiff University, thesis on British press discourse on asylum seekers
April 2009, PhD internal examiner, UEL, thesis on speculative realist approaches to nanotechnology
November 2006, PhD examiner, University of New South Wales, thesis on the music of James Brown
June 2004, PhD external examiner, University of Essex, thesis on Taiwanese cultural politics

Events Organised

I have over 30 years experience organising events which bring together academic and non-academic audiences to generate a high level of public discussion on cultural, social and political issues. In recent years I’ve specialised in one-day or afternoon symposia on a range of topics, listed below, but I have also been involved in conferences ranging from the medium-sized to the very large. Here is a selection:

‘Capitalism and the Human’ international conference, Brown University, May 6th-7th 2022.
‘Acid Corbynism’, Brilliant Corners, London, Feb 24th 2018
‘The End of Neoliberalism?’ One-day conference held at City University, December 15th 2016 (organiser and speaker)
‘Corbyn and Charisma’ seminar with Lisa Baraitser, Zoe Williams, Mark Fisher, Jeremy Gilbert, October 25th 2015 (held at Senate House, London, hosted by CCSR UEL)
‘The Politics of Leadership’ Seminar with Archie Brown, Alan Finlayson, Shirin M. Rai and Marc Stears, December 16th 2015 (held at Senate House, London, hosted by CCSR UEL)
‘Hearing our History Now: with Selector Paul Gilroy’, Brilliant Corners, London, Dec 6th 2014.
‘Vinyl Culture: A Seminar and a Party’ March 28th 2014, (held at Brilliant Corners, London, hosted by CCSR UEL)
‘Music, Politics and Agency’ Series of seminars co-organised by UEL CCSR and the Wire magazine, Stratford, London 2012-3
Radical Foucault, September 8th-9th 2011, University of East London
Music, Politics and Agency May 20th 2011, UEL. In collaboration with colleagues at the Open University and University of Leeds.
I accepted the invitation from the organisers of the Netaudio 2011 digital arts festival, May 15th 2011 (Roundhouse, Camden) to programme the conference element of the festival, organising a number of panels bringing together academics and practitioners in the field of digital culture, music and politics.
The Art of Protest, UEL, March 2nd 2011: featured a range of journalists and bloggers, including Dan Hancox (Guardian), Jesse Darling.
The Politics of Pain, UEL, December 8th, 2010: speakers included Kate Pickett (York), Michael Rustin (UEL)
The Politics of Debt, UEL, October 13th 2010: speakers included Aditya Chakrabortty (Guardian), David Graeber (Goldsmiths)
The Politics of Consumption, UEL, May 18th, 2010: speakers included Kate Soper (London Metropolitan), Jon Cruddas M.P., Neal Lawson (Compass chair), Daniel Miller (UCL)
Modernism after Postmodernism, UEL, November 11th, 2009: speakers included Owen Hatherley and Nina Power.
The Hardcore Continuum? On the legacy of electronic music from East London at UEL, April 29th 2009, featured journalists and bloggers such as Lisa Blanning (The Wire) and Mark Fisher
Culture (and Cultural Studies) After the Crunch: The End of Neoliberalism, February 4th 2009, Rich Mix arts centre, London (in collaboration with the Open University): speakers included John Clarke (Open University) and Lawrence Grossberg (North Carolina)
Machine: The Difference and Repetitions of James Brown, University of East London, October 15th 2008: speakers included Anne Danielsen (Oslo) and John Scannell (Macquarie)
Organiser (with colleagues) Cultural Studies Now, University of East London. July 2007 (largest UK Cultural Studies conference ever held aside from Crossroads in Cultural Studies)
Psychoanalysis, Politics and Culture, University of East London, November 10th 2004: speakers included Peter Osborne (Middlesex) and John Fletcher (Warwick).
Convenor ‘Cultural Politics’ panel at 1999 Political Studies Association conference.
Organiser ‘Cultural Politics / Political Cultures’ conference, University of Sussex, Sep 1998

Editorship of New Formations

Since September 2008 I have been editor of New Formations, one of the oldest journals of cultural theory publishing in English. In this role I have taken sole responsibility for the commissioning and editing of most of the issues that have been published and are currently in process, for the review and revision of all unsolicited contributions, for the day-to-day management of the journal (including liaising with the publisher) and for convening the editorial board.

New Formations has a policy of generally not participating in ranking exercises, except when we think that non-compliance will make it effectively impossible for early career researchers to be able to contribute without damaging their career prospects. It is worth noting, however, that as well as having hosted articles by many world-leading figures in the field, we have reasonable evidence that a good number of articles published in the journal were awarded 4 stars for REF 2014 UoA 36 and UoA29. We haven’t yet tried to collate comparable data for REF 2021.

Editorial and Advisory Board Memberships

2009- Editorial Board Member, Cultural Studies

2010-2017 Advisory Board Cadernos do Tempo Presente (http://www.getempo.org/)

2003-2006 Editorial Board Member Mediactive: Ideas / Knowledge / Culture

2001-2008 Editorial Advisory Board member, Journal of Social Movement Studies

2000-2005 Content Editor, Signs of the Times, www.signsofthetimes.org.uk

1996 - Editorial board member of New Formations: A journal of

culture/theory/politics (Lawrence & Wishart)

Journal referee: Theory, Culture & Society

Cultural Studies

Journal of Political Ideologies

Contemporary Political Theory

Ephemera: Critical dialogues on Organization

Deleuze Studies

Body & Society

National Women’s Studies Association Journal (USA)

Subjectivity

Borderlands

European Journal of Cultural Studies

Distinktion

Philosophy and Rhetoric

Fellowships and Learned Societies

· Association for Cultural Studies: individual member, former board member

· Political Studies Association: individual member

· British Sociological Association: individual member

· Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association: institutional member

· Royal Society of the Arts: Invited Fellow

External Funding

2020 Fully paid Visiting Professorship, Brown University

2003 British Academy Overseas Conference Grant

1996-9 AHRB Studentship

1994-5 British Academy Studentship

I was involved with several unsuccessful funding bids with colleagues at UEL 2014-17

Other Professional Experience

Research grant reviewer for: ESRC (three times), Oesterreichische Nationalbank (twice); Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Austrian Science Fund (twice), Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research - Council for the Humanities.

Frequent proposal reviewer for Sage, Pluto, Palgrave, Taylor & Francis, Edinburgh University Press, Duke University Press, MacMillan etc.

External Examiner, MA Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths College, 2013-16

Institutional review panel for Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths College, external reviewer, June 2010

Keynotes and plenaries

Keynote ‘What’s Happening to Cultural Studies’ conference, University of Brighton, September 14th-16th 2022
Plenary speaker ‘Capitalism and the Human’ conference, Brown University, May 6th-7th 2022
Plenary speaker: ‘Transmediale 2019’, Berlin, February 1st 2019
Plenary speaker: ‘Rethinking 1968’ conference, UEL, September 22nd, 2018.
Invited speaker: Annual Lecture, Social and Cultural Geographies Research Group, Northumbria University, June 6th 2018
Keynote, ‘New Approaches to Counterculture’, Institute for the Advanced Study of the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, April 12th-13th 2018
Keynote, ‘Alterity and the Research Imagination’ , Graduate Conference on Cultural Studies, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon, Portugal, Jan 25th-26th 2018
Keynote, ‘Cultures of Capitalism’, Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Conference 2017, December 6-8, Massey University, Wellington, NZ
Keynote, ‘Debt, Opportunity and the Modern Refugee’ conference, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Keynote, Media / Practices / Commoning conference, University of Konstanz, October 9th - 11th 2017, Konstanz, Germany.
Keynote, ‘Is There a Musical Avant Garde Today’, RMA, July 21st 2017, City University
Keynote, ‘Borders and Boundaries: Territories, Technologies and Transgressions’ (MECCSA Graduate conference) June 26th-27th 2017, Goldsmiths
Keynote, ‘Dissent in the Neoliberal Era’ symposium, Keele University, May 9th 2017
Keynote, MECCSA Annual Conference, Canterbury Christ Church University, 2016
Invited Public lecture then graduate masterclass, People’s History Museum / University of Manchester ‘Finance and the Market: Assessing Boundaries’, November 12th 2015
Invited Plenary speaker: Affect: Worldings, Tensions, Futures conference, Millersville University, Lancaster PA, USA, October 14th-17th 2015
Keynote, PLANK conference,Techniques of Art and Protest, Sep 18 2015
Keynote, Capitalism, Culture and the Media conference University of Leeds, Sep 2015.
Invited plenary speaker, Penser L’Emancipation, Université Paris Nanterre, 19-22 Februrary 2014.
Keynote, John Douglas Taylor Conference May 2013, McMaster University, Canada
Keynote, The Eighties in Theory and Practice conference, May 2013, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, US
Plenary speaker: Crossroads in Cultural Studies July 2nd-6th 2012, Paris (the biennial major international conference of Cultural Studies)
Keynote at both main conference and post-conference special workshop, Popular Culture and World Politics IV, November 26th-27th 2011, University of Lapland.
Invited speaker and panel-moderator European Perspectives on Cultural Studies conference, Norrköping, Sweden, June 14th-17th 2011: invited by the conference organisers to programme and moderate the panel representing cultural studies in the UK and by panel-organisers from Tilburg University, Holland, to participate in panel as a special discussant (was invited to Tilburg May 11th- 12th 2010 to participate in a preparatory seminar for this).
Invited guest lecturer, Clandestino festival (another music festival with a literary element), Gothenburg, Sweden, June 9th 2011, on global conflicts between liberalism and democracy.
Invited guest lecturer and panel co-ordinator, SOS 4.8 festival (music festival with a literary element), Murcia, Spain, May 6th 2011, on the history and politics of dance music culture.
Keynote, Deleuze and Activism conference, November 2009, Cardiff University
Keynote, Cultural Studies Now, University of East London, July 20th 2007
Keynote, ‘Balancing Acts: Theory, discipline and the political pivot’ at Theoretical Gymnastics, graduate conference, Goldsmiths College, London, July 31st 2007

Invited papers and talks

Invited speaker ‘Left Futures’ seminar, Kings College London, July 15th 2022
Invited speaker, ‘A radical disjuncture? Bringing 'conjunctural analysis' into the world of alternative and prefigurative organising.’, University of Nottingham, May 19th 2022
Invited speaker, Ideology and Discourse Analysis seminar programme, University of Essex November 19th 2020
Invited speaker ‘The Future of Negative Solidarity’, Red May, Seattle, May 9th 2020
Invited Lecture, ‘Social Media, Platform Power and Affect’ Institut für Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft, Universität Wien (Vienna), May 9th 2020
Invited speaker ‘Crisis and Communitas’ symposium, University of Zurich, November 14th-15th 2019
‘Acid Corbynism’ Cardiff People’s Assembly, October 18th, 2018
‘Acid Corbynism’, Shoreditch House, May 14th 2018
‘Party Politics’ talk at Partisan social centre, Manchester, April 30th 2018
‘Music and Consciousness’ talk at Rewire music festival, the Hague, April 6th-8th 2018
‘Platform Power’ Invited presentation to ‘Antiuniversity’ event, London, June 13th 2017
‘Who Won the Culture Wars?’ March 8th 2017, Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick
‘The End of the World as We Know It’, invited talk, Department of Visual Culture, Goldsmiths, December 8th 2016
Invited Speaker: Book Launch for Ash Amin & Philip Howell (eds) (2016) Releasing the Commons (Routledge), Department of Geography, University of Cambridge.
‘Interests, Desires, Demands: theorising interests beyond any individualism or essentialism’ invited contribution to panel on Radical Theory and Politics, Political Studies Association Conference, March 23rd 2016
Invited speaker ‘Hegemony, Populism and Emancipation: Remembering Ernesto Laclau’, Birkbeck, December 5th 2015.
Invited talk ‘Everything has Changed but Nothing has Changed: Cultural Stasis and Technological Revolution’ Open School East, London, July 2nd 2015
Invited Speaker ‘Bureaucracy Symposium’ ICA, London, July 1st 2015
Invited speaker ‘Radical Hope’ conference, May 16th 2015, London
Invited speaker: ‘After the Election’ seminar, April 27th 2015, LRB Bookshop, London
Invited speaker ‘Postpolitics and Neoliberalism’ conference, March 21 2015, Birkbeck
Invited speaker ‘Change: How?’ conference February 8th 2015, London
Public Lecture ‘Democracy and Collective Action in the 21st Century’, House of Commons, November 11th 2014
Invited lecturer Musikprotokoll 2012 festival, Graz, Austria, October 4th-7th 2012
Invited lecturer, Denkfabrik conference (part of Berlin Music Week) September 5th, 2012
Invited respondent to Immanuel Wallerstein’s lecture, York Festival of Ideas, June 28th 2012
Invited speaker, Music, Methods and the Social research workshop, organised by Centre for Research in Economic and Socio-Cultural Change, Leicester, May 17th-18th 2012
Invited participant, ‘Protest / Culture’ Workshop, Social Science Research Center, Berlin, March 16th-17th 2012
Invited speaker ‘Deleuze and Guattari and Occupy’ event, ‘Occupy LSX / School of Ideas’, London, February 25th2012
Invited speaker ‘The Changing Nature of Higher Education’ seminar convened by Media and Politics Group, Political Studies Association, House of Commons, November 21st 2011
Invited speaker, The Human Cost of the Cuts seminar, Salford University, May 26th 2011
Invited speaker: Crisis in Participation / Participation in Crisis seminar, Open University, April 12th 2011
Invited paper: ‘"There is no ideology, and there never has been"? Theorising hegemony and 'post-hegemony' after 'the affective turn', Anglia Ruskin University, March 16th 2011
Invited paper: ‘Music, Power, Rhetoric’ Peterhouse, Cambridge, March 9th 2011
Invited speaker: Media and the Inner World AHRC research network concluding seminar, Tavistock Institute, London, February 26th 2011
Invited speaker introducing Rollo Jackson’s Tape Crackers, ICA Feb 3rd 2010
Invited speaker: ‘Capitalism after the Crash: the rise and fall of neoliberalism’ ICA October 28th 2010, panel featuring Paul Mason and speakers from New Economics Foundation.
Invited speaker, Goldsmiths Centre for Media and Democracy, May 20th 2010
Invited speaker, ‘Demos’ (Belgian think tank and social enterprise) event, speaking with Richard Wilkinson in response to his book The Spirit Level, Ghent, May 17th 2010
Invited speaker, Oxford Radical Forum, March 6th 2010
Invited speaker, Goldsmiths Centre for Media and Democracy, October 29th 2009
Invited speaker: Raymond Williams Archive Project workshop, Swansea University, May 29th 2009
Invited speaker ‘The Formation and Persistence Processes of Music Scenes’, University of Applied Arts, Vienna, May 7th-8th 2009
Invited Paper ‘Capital Creates Nothing’ University Of Brighton, January 22nd 2009
Invited Paper ‘Invited Paper ‘Citizens of the World? Aporias of Postmodern Individualism’ London Metropolitan University, November 25th 2008
Invited Speaker at ‘After New Labour’ event, hosted by The Guardian, Kings Place, November 3rd 2008 (other speakers: Harriet Harman MP, John Cruddas MP, Chukka Ummuna)
Invited paper ‘Time, Technics and Togetherness’ University of Bradford / National Media Museum, May 14th 2008
Invited paper on ‘Infinite Relationality’, Roehampton University, March 6th 2006
Invited speaker, ‘Homobeat: Club. Tendenze. Sesso. Droga.’ February 24-26 2006, Bologna.
Invited paper ‘New Labour and the Hegemony of Competitive Individualism’, Local Government Centre, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, November 3rd 2005.
Invited speaker at Democracy Beyond Democracy: Democratic Struggle in a Post-Democratic Age, Depot, Museumquartier, Vienna, September 9th-10th 2005.
Invited paper, ‘The Tyranny of Celebrity’, Staff/graduate seminar, University of Cardiff, March 2004
Invited paper, ‘Culture – Discourse – Affect’, Staff/graduate seminar, Graduate Research Centre in Culture and Communication, University of Sussex, November 2002
‘Subculture: a Strategy of Power’ invited paper given at ‘Post-Subcultural Cultural Studies?’, Depot, Museumquartier, Vienna, May 2001.
Invited paper, ‘The Politics of Dancing’ Staff/graduate seminar in Media and Cultural Studies, University of Coventry, June 1999

Conference papers

‘Freedom After Snowden’, Refrains of Freedom conference, Athens, April 24th-26th, 2015.
‘The différance of the pre-personal: individuation in the field of infinite sociality’, Gilbert Simondon: Transduction, Translation, Transformation conference, May 27th-28th 2010, AUP, Paris
‘Ecology, Technicity, Machines: the infinite relationality of the post-human’ Paper at the 11th congress of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas, Helsinki, July 28th - August 2nd 2008
‘Everyone is a Philosopher: Gramsci-Guattari-Deleuze’ paper at First International Deleuze Studies Conference, University of Cardiff, August 11th-13th 2008
Panel organiser and contributor on ‘The work of Bernard Stiegler and gave paper ‘The socio-technicity of affect’ at Ubiquitous Media: Asian Transformations conference (Theory, Culture & Society 25th anniversary conference), University of Tokyo, 13-16 July 2007
‘Infinite Relationality’, paper at Counter-Movements: Institutions of Difference conference, held at the University of Portsmouth 24-25 July 2006
‘The Sociality of Affect’ paper at Theorising Affect conference, University of Durham, January 10th-11th, 2006.
‘Tracing Culture: Deconstructing discourse’ at ‘American Comparative Literature Association 2003: Crossing Over, California State University San Marcos, April 4th-6th 2003.
‘Culture / Discourse: After Logocentrism’ at Cultural Returns: Assessing the Place of Culture in Social ThoughtOpen University Centre for Social & Cultural Research, Oxford, September 18th-20th 2002.
‘Cultural Studies Beyond the Linguistic Turn’ contribution to panel on ‘Affect’ at Crossroads in Cultural Studies, University Of Tampere, Finland, June 29th-July 2nd 2002
‘A Class Performance: Why the Class Struggle was a Really Good Idea’ at Translating Class / Altering Hospitality, AHRB Centre for Cultural Theory, Analysis and History’, University of Leeds, June 21st-23rd 2002.
‘Beyond the Activist Imaginary’ at Finding the Political, Goldsmiths College, January 2001
'The Politicality of Cultural Forms: From Williams to Laclau & Mouffe', at Alternative Futures and Popular Protest, Manchester Metropolitan University, April 1998
‘Discourse Analysis contra Sociology? at Cultural Politics / Political Cultures, University of Sussex, September 1998
'New Labour, New Britain? Why Girl Power Might Save Us Yet' at In Transition 79-97, University of Essex, March 1998
‘On the Politicality of Music’ at Post-Theory, University of Glasgow, July 1996

Languages

English (native speaker)

French (read: fluent; spoken: competent, especially in professional contexts)

Translated written French political philosophy to English to professional/published standard
Acted as external supervisor for a full French-language PhD, University of Lausanne

Additional Experience and Impact

Music Culture, organisation and business

Since 2003, I have been a director of Lucky Cloud Ltd, a highly successful business promoting a series of successful and highly-regarded regular dance parties in London, with a turnover of over £20,000 pa (although it is run on a strictly not-for-profit basis). This has resulted in me amassing considerable experience in commercial activity, cashflow and project management (including the repayment of a £35,000.00 startup loan) audio engineering, promotion, event-management and event organisation. The project began as a collaboration with David Mancuso, arguably the most influential figure in the history of dance music culture.

This project has given rise to a second regular event, ‘Beauty and the Beat’, with a comparable turnover, for which I am also the main financial officer and one of three regular DJs, which has promoted regular events since 2005. This project has given rise to the launch of a record label, ‘Beauty and the Beat’, which has issued several successful releases.

Both of these series of events have had a considerable cultural impact in East London, playing a key role in inspiring and motivating the emergence of public audiophile venues such as the well-known Dalston venue, Brilliant Corners. My activity in this area was included in an impact study for REF 2014.

Politics, civil society and political education

2016-18: Management committee, Compass

2016-8 Advisor, New Economy Organisers Network (founded by New Economics Foundation) on the development of their syllabus, having contributed to earlier training numerous times. NEON brings together a diverse constituency of political activists and organisers, and offers well-regarded political training to the NGO and union sector

2015-6: Member of the founding national committee of Momentum

I have acted as an informal adviser to a number of key Labour Party figures including several prominent M.P.s. I would describe my role in all of these developments as trying to bridge the gaps between the ‘soft’ and radical lefts of the Labour Party and between the worlds of formal politics, the academy and extra-parliamentary activism.

2015 – present: Organiser and main tutor, Culture, Power and Politics seminar series, initially hosted by New Economics Foundation

2015 - Ongoing adviser to the organising group for The World Transformed. This organisation planned and executed a remarkably successful series of educational events to coincide with every Labour Party Conference since 2016 at which I have organised and spoken in numerous sessions with participants such as Pragna Patel, Professor Selina Todd, Jon Cruddas MP, John Harris, Richard Seymour, Clive Lewis MP, Lynne Segal, etc, as well as leading themed reading groups and giving plenary lectures. The organisers of this project have described my book Common Ground as a key influence on their organisational practice and I have led trainings for new volunteers to the organisation.

Key advisor to the ongoing youth political education project Demand the Impossible and the political project which emerged from it, Take Back the City.

1993- mid 2000s: Signs of the Times (www.signsofthetimes.org.uk

Founder organiser of this group providing public space for political discussion on the left outside the confines of the academy or established parties.

Involved in co-ordinating major conferences (Foucault Anniversary Conference 1994, Postmodern Times conference 1995 CityStates conference 1996, Critical Masses conference 1997, Critical Politics conference October 1999) 15 seminar series (featuring figures as diverse as Ernesto Laclau, Suzanne Moore, Andrew Gamble, Nina Fishman, Stuart Hall and Michael Gove) and as well as numerous publications, including three books.

2004: Co-organiser, Radical Theory Forum, European Social Forum, London (one-day conference attended by c. 300 people).

2003: Co-organiser, Radical Theory Forum, European Social Forum, Paris, November.

2003: Organiser ‘Democracy’ workshop at first London Social Forum, London,

Early Experience

Student Representative English Subject Group (University of Sussex) 1994-5; University of East London Labour Club Secretary 1991-2, Chair 1992-3; Student Representative UEL Cultural Studies Course Committee 1991-4; Student Union Representative University of East London Academic Board 1991-2

Wrote and directed winning entry Best Experimental Film, Granada Film and Television Awards, 1991