Profile
My interdisciplinary research investigates the aesthetics and affective politics of everyday digital media, and how they transform global politics and political subjectivity. Prior to joining Queen Mary University of London, I completed my PhD at the University of Bristol in 2024 with a thesis on the global politics of internet memes, which was awarded the 'BISA Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group's Best Thesis Prize' and an honourable mention for the 'BISA Michael Nicholson Prize for Best Thesis in International Studies'. At the moment, I am in the process of turning this thesis into a book, with the title 'The Memescape: Digital Politics in Movement'.
As a Postdoctoral Research Associate, I am currently working with Professor Martin Coward on a new project examining the digital aesthetics of global collapse, and how imagined and/or felt futures of catastrophic change put aesthetic/affective pressures on the present as the lived moment.
I am also the co-convenor of the BISA Critical Alternatives for World Politics (CAWP) Working Group, which I have started with Dr Natalie Jester. I was previously the co-convenor of BISA Post-Structuralist Politics Working Group and the Network Coordinator for Reactionary Politics Research Network at the University of Bath.
Research
Research Interests:
- Digital Media
- Critical International Relations Theory
- Affect
- Aesthetics
- Temporality
- Everyday Politics
- Desire
Publications
2025, Ordinary Affects of Global Reactionary Politics, Critical Studies on Security, 1-5, co-authored with Elisabeth Moerking
2024, Cucktales: Race, Sex, and Enjoyment in the Reactionary Memescape, International Political Sociology, 18 (3), 1-28 (Winner of EISA Best Graduate Paper Award 2023)
2024, Disciplinary Seriousness in International Relations: Towards a Counterpolitics of the Silly Object, Global Studies Quarterly, 4 (2), 1-10, co-authored with Alister Wedderburn
2024, Theorising the Memescape: The Spatial Politics of Internet Memes, Review of International Studies, 50 (1), 35-57 (Winner of Review of International Studies Best Article Prize 2024)
2022, Repeat After Me!: Child's Play, Immaturity, and Resistance, Critical Studies on Security, 10 (2), 87-90