Upcoming Presentations and Public Lectures
'"A Bullet for the Cause?" The Irish Language, Identity Politics, and Intergenerational Trauma in Kneecap (2024)' - with Cahir O’Doherty (Groningen), British International Studies Association Conference, Europa Hotel, Belfast, Northern Ireland (18-20 June 2025)
The 2024 film Kneecap links questions of sustainable peace, post-conflict resolution, linguistic rights, and intergenerational trauma through the (Irish) medium of hip-hop, drug use, and recreational violence. Blending the real and the representational, the film centres on the three members of the hip-hop band Kneecap and their efforts to gain fame, while also highlighting everyday issues of culture, identity, and politics in Belfast. Our paper exploring these interconnections proceeds in four parts: 1) a précis of the film, a discussion of its use of sound, symbols, and space, and overviews of its characters; 2) a visual, sonic, and narrative analysis of the film’s representation of identity politics associated with the ‘ceasefire generation’ in the North of Ireland (focusing on class, gender, sectarianism, and drug use); 3) an exploration of how the Troubles still haunt the North of Ireland while remaining somewhat (sexually) fetishised; 4) contextualisation of the Irish language as a tool of political agency that binds and divides its speakers to/from each other, the British state, and the Republic of Ireland. In addition to the film itself, we analyse paratexts produced by the band, many of which focus on specific places and space in Belfast and beyond.
The 2024 film Kneecap links questions of sustainable peace, post-conflict resolution, linguistic rights, and intergenerational trauma through the (Irish) medium of hip-hop, drug use, and recreational violence. Blending the real and the representational, the film centres on the three members of the hip-hop band Kneecap and their efforts to gain fame, while also highlighting everyday issues of culture, identity, and politics in Belfast. Our paper exploring these interconnections proceeds in four parts: 1) a précis of the film, a discussion of its use of sound, symbols, and space, and overviews of its characters; 2) a visual, sonic, and narrative analysis of the film’s representation of identity politics associated with the ‘ceasefire generation’ in the North of Ireland (focusing on class, gender, sectarianism, and drug use); 3) an exploration of how the Troubles still haunt the North of Ireland while remaining somewhat (sexually) fetishised; 4) contextualisation of the Irish language as a tool of political agency that binds and divides its speakers to/from each other, the British state, and the Republic of Ireland. In addition to the film itself, we analyse paratexts produced by the band, many of which focus on specific places and space in Belfast and beyond.
'Navigating Trump 2.0: A Pop-Culture Guide to the Rise of American Fascism from Sinclair Lewis to the Late-Night Deathwatch', British International Studies Association Conference, Europa Hotel, Belfast, Northern Ireland (18-20 June 2025)
‘Being right sucks’: This was scribbled on the chalkboard in the opening credits of The Simpsons the week after Donald J. Trump won the 2016 presidential election. In actuality, the long-running animated series had predicted him to win the 2024 race in Season 11’s ‘Bart to the Future’ episode (2000); this prognostication has now come to pass. My paper examines how popular culture has signposted the impending of rise of fascism in the US from Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here (1935) up through what I am calling the ‘Late-Night Deathwatch’, the media assemblage associated with talk show hosts who have offended Trump and now nervously await his ‘retribution’ once back in office. Reacting to the October 2024 recorded interview with Trump’s former Head of Staff, John Kelly, in which the retired Marine general placed his boss ‘into the general definition of a fascist’, my analysis interrogates the premise that Trump’s second term signals America’s long-presaged embrace of fascism. I do this via an assessment of what ‘fascism’ looks like in the twenty-first century, Americans’ proven and pervasive distrust of the federal government, and what role social media, podcasts, and other forms of popular culture play in contesting and abetting the country’s growing embrace of authoritarianism.
‘Being right sucks’: This was scribbled on the chalkboard in the opening credits of The Simpsons the week after Donald J. Trump won the 2016 presidential election. In actuality, the long-running animated series had predicted him to win the 2024 race in Season 11’s ‘Bart to the Future’ episode (2000); this prognostication has now come to pass. My paper examines how popular culture has signposted the impending of rise of fascism in the US from Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here (1935) up through what I am calling the ‘Late-Night Deathwatch’, the media assemblage associated with talk show hosts who have offended Trump and now nervously await his ‘retribution’ once back in office. Reacting to the October 2024 recorded interview with Trump’s former Head of Staff, John Kelly, in which the retired Marine general placed his boss ‘into the general definition of a fascist’, my analysis interrogates the premise that Trump’s second term signals America’s long-presaged embrace of fascism. I do this via an assessment of what ‘fascism’ looks like in the twenty-first century, Americans’ proven and pervasive distrust of the federal government, and what role social media, podcasts, and other forms of popular culture play in contesting and abetting the country’s growing embrace of authoritarianism.
'Geographies of Media and Popular Culture in the New Age of Anxiety' - Organiser and Chair, American Association of Geographers' Annual Meeting, Detroit, Michigan (24-28 March 2025)
Building on the recent special issue in Social & Cultural Geography with the theme ‘(Em)placing the Popular in Cultural Geography’, which focused on how media and popular culture produce spatial-social relations that enable people to negotiate their place in the world, our panel brings together scholars working on geographies of media and popular culture to assess the current state of affairs. Given the unexpected and yet-seemingly inevitable re-election of Donald J. Trump to the American presidency as wars rage in Ukraine and the Middle East, we will discuss how anxiety maps onto media geographies, whether in the form of establishing community in times of societal fracturing or enflaming and exacerbating divisions in digital spaces and the real world. We aim to examine a variety of platforms, including film/television series, documentaries, novels, fashion, music, late-night comedy, podcasts, memes, and social media.
Building on the recent special issue in Social & Cultural Geography with the theme ‘(Em)placing the Popular in Cultural Geography’, which focused on how media and popular culture produce spatial-social relations that enable people to negotiate their place in the world, our panel brings together scholars working on geographies of media and popular culture to assess the current state of affairs. Given the unexpected and yet-seemingly inevitable re-election of Donald J. Trump to the American presidency as wars rage in Ukraine and the Middle East, we will discuss how anxiety maps onto media geographies, whether in the form of establishing community in times of societal fracturing or enflaming and exacerbating divisions in digital spaces and the real world. We aim to examine a variety of platforms, including film/television series, documentaries, novels, fashion, music, late-night comedy, podcasts, memes, and social media.
Past Events
'A Marvel to Behold or For-Profit Pandering? Disney’s Embrace of Indigenous Recognition, Resistance, and Survivance', 15th Popular Culture and World Politics Conference (PCWP v15), 22 November 2024, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
'"Do You See What I See?" Visions of the Anthropocene in Serial TV Drama', European Workshops in International Studies (EWIS), WS31: Popular Culture and the End of the World: Imagining Dystopia and Utopia in the Anthropocene Epoch at Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Türkiye (5 July 2024)
'"Obey": Navigating the Incepted Inheritance of 1980s Pop-Culture in the Era of Trumpism', British International Studies Association Conference, Birmingham, UK (5 June 2024)
Roundtable (Chair): Charting the Future of PCWP Scholarship beyond the Tübingen School, British International Studies Association conference, Birmingham, UK (5 June 2024)
'Terra Nullius No More! Finland in Geopolitical Imagination after NATO', hosted by the Global Politics and Practice Research Group at Central European University, Vienna, Austria (21 November 2023)
'Black + Brown ≠ Green: The Absent Presence of the Anthropocene in Wakanda Forever', Popular Culture and World Politics v14: Shaping a Broken World at Central European University, Vienna, Austria (17 November 2023)
'Posthuman Geopolitical Culture(s): Decentring the State in the Anthropocene Epoch' at the British International Studies Association conference, Hilton Glasgow, UK (23 June 2023)
'Blinding Visions of the Anthropocene: Thinking and Feeling the New Human Epoch While Watching See ', Televisual Landscapes in the Era of Climate Crises at the ECREA 9th European Communication Conference, Aarhus University, Denmark (21 October 2022)
'A See Change? Observations on the (Visual) Politics of Screening the Anthropocene ', Surviving the Human Epoch: Popular Culture and the (Geo)Politics of the Anthropocene at the British International Studies Association (BISA) conference, Newcastle University, UK (16 June 2022)
'Geographical Imagination, Genealogy, and Geopolitics in Who Do You Think You Are? ' at the (Em)placing the Popular in Cultural Geography workshop at Coventry University, UK (12 January 2022)
'(Be)longing to/for the Past: Negotiations of Time, Space, and Identity in Beforeigners ', In/between Spaces of Power - SF Geographies of Bodies in Troubled Times at the Swiss Geoscience Meeting (SGM), University of Geneva, Switzerland (20 November 2021)
'IR in Ruins: Imagining Global Power in the Coming Apocalypse', Cosmologies of the End workshop at the 7th European Workshops in International Studies (EWIS), University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece (2 July 2021)
'A Critical Analysis of the Political Geographies of Black Panther', invited keynote at Headington College and Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability workshop, University of Oklahoma (March 26, 2019)
'Extending the Katechon: Religio-Civilizational Vectors in Russia’s Intervention in the Levant', Striking from the Margins Conference: State, Disintegration and Devolution of Authority in the Arab Middle East , American University of Beirut, Lebanon (January 17, 2019)
'Who Gets to Imagine the Community in Cyberspace? A Reflection on the Past(s), Present, and Future(s) of Digital Nationalism' at the Nations in Cyberspace conference, hosted by the Nationalism Studies Program, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary (June 28, 2018)
'#Geopolitics: Diplomacy in the Age of Twitter', School of International Relations at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia (April 27, 2018)
'"Do You See What I See?" Visions of the Anthropocene in Serial TV Drama', European Workshops in International Studies (EWIS), WS31: Popular Culture and the End of the World: Imagining Dystopia and Utopia in the Anthropocene Epoch at Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Türkiye (5 July 2024)
'"Obey": Navigating the Incepted Inheritance of 1980s Pop-Culture in the Era of Trumpism', British International Studies Association Conference, Birmingham, UK (5 June 2024)
Roundtable (Chair): Charting the Future of PCWP Scholarship beyond the Tübingen School, British International Studies Association conference, Birmingham, UK (5 June 2024)
'Terra Nullius No More! Finland in Geopolitical Imagination after NATO', hosted by the Global Politics and Practice Research Group at Central European University, Vienna, Austria (21 November 2023)
'Black + Brown ≠ Green: The Absent Presence of the Anthropocene in Wakanda Forever', Popular Culture and World Politics v14: Shaping a Broken World at Central European University, Vienna, Austria (17 November 2023)
'Posthuman Geopolitical Culture(s): Decentring the State in the Anthropocene Epoch' at the British International Studies Association conference, Hilton Glasgow, UK (23 June 2023)
'Blinding Visions of the Anthropocene: Thinking and Feeling the New Human Epoch While Watching See ', Televisual Landscapes in the Era of Climate Crises at the ECREA 9th European Communication Conference, Aarhus University, Denmark (21 October 2022)
'A See Change? Observations on the (Visual) Politics of Screening the Anthropocene ', Surviving the Human Epoch: Popular Culture and the (Geo)Politics of the Anthropocene at the British International Studies Association (BISA) conference, Newcastle University, UK (16 June 2022)
'Geographical Imagination, Genealogy, and Geopolitics in Who Do You Think You Are? ' at the (Em)placing the Popular in Cultural Geography workshop at Coventry University, UK (12 January 2022)
'(Be)longing to/for the Past: Negotiations of Time, Space, and Identity in Beforeigners ', In/between Spaces of Power - SF Geographies of Bodies in Troubled Times at the Swiss Geoscience Meeting (SGM), University of Geneva, Switzerland (20 November 2021)
'IR in Ruins: Imagining Global Power in the Coming Apocalypse', Cosmologies of the End workshop at the 7th European Workshops in International Studies (EWIS), University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece (2 July 2021)
'A Critical Analysis of the Political Geographies of Black Panther', invited keynote at Headington College and Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability workshop, University of Oklahoma (March 26, 2019)
'Extending the Katechon: Religio-Civilizational Vectors in Russia’s Intervention in the Levant', Striking from the Margins Conference: State, Disintegration and Devolution of Authority in the Arab Middle East , American University of Beirut, Lebanon (January 17, 2019)
'Who Gets to Imagine the Community in Cyberspace? A Reflection on the Past(s), Present, and Future(s) of Digital Nationalism' at the Nations in Cyberspace conference, hosted by the Nationalism Studies Program, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary (June 28, 2018)
'#Geopolitics: Diplomacy in the Age of Twitter', School of International Relations at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia (April 27, 2018)