Who we are

Drawing on a background in literary history and cultural discourse, Cathy Bergin's primary research interests are in the politics of 'race' and colonialism in  African-American and Caribbean writing, focussing on cultural formations and Communist politics in the 20th Century. She is particularly interested in the concept of 'rage' as the expression of black historical consciousness and agency.

Cathy has lectured in historical and critical studies at the university since 2005 and organises the long-standing Politics, Philosophy and Aesthetics research seminar series.

Bob Brecher is a moral and political philosopher with special interests in the philosophical issues surrounding conflict, torture and medicine, and in the ethics of education.

Tom Bunyard’s primary research interests are focussed on the theoretical work of Guy Debord and the Situationist International, and on Debord’s central concept of ‘spectacle’. In 2011, he completed a PhD on this topic at Goldsmiths, University of London. The thesis traced the genealogy of Debord’s theory, interpreted it through its primary theoretical and philosophical influences, and foregrounded the central importance of time, history and praxis to Debord’s thought. Tom has recently completed a monograph on this topic. Titled Debord, Time and Spectacle: Hegelian Marxism and Situationist Theory, the book reconstructs and evaluates the conceptual framework that underlies Debord’s claims. In doing so, it places particular emphasis on the Hegelian and existential dimensions of Debord’s work, and focusses on his concerns with historical agency.

This study of the Debord’s work has led to an interest in the temporality of modern society, and related notions of social pathology. Tom is currently pursuing this by looking at new readings of Hegel’s philosophy, and at contemporary ‘value-form’ interpretations of Marx’s mature work. More broadly, his interests include: Marx and Marxism; Hegelian philosophy; existentialism; aesthetics and the avant-garde; continental philosophy; cultural and critical theory; philosophy of history.

Dr. Nicola Clewer is a lecturer in the School of Humanities. Her research focuses on the relationship between aesthetics and politics. More specifically, her work to date has interrogated the philosophical, political and aesthetic dimensions of memorialisation in the neoliberal conjuncture. Her current research explores the relationship between neoliberalism and the rise of the far-right through the lens of the aesthetic concept of the sublime.

Dr. Deanna Dadusc is a Senior Lecturer and Course Leader in Criminology at the School of Applied Social Science. Her research focuses on the criminalisation of social movements in Europe, with a specific focus on the criminalisation of migrants' solidarity and of squatting.

She is co-editor of a special Issue for the journal Citizenship Studies, titled: 'Citizenship as inhabitance? Migrant housing squats versus institutional accommodation' (2019). She also authored multiple articles and chapters, including “Squatting and the undocumented migrants’ struggle in the Netherlands” (2017) and 'Enclosing Autonomy: The politics of Tolerance and Criminalisation of Squatting (2019). Together with Dr. Eleni Dimou and Prof. Pierpaolo Mudu, Deanna is currently co-authoring a book titled ‘’Borders, Repression and Resistance: the criminalisation of migrants’ solidarity’’ (Routledge, forthcoming).

At the University of Brighton, she has developed a year-long module titled ‘The Criminology of Borders’ in collaboration with Raphael Schlembach. The module critically addresses issues of migrants’ social exclusion and criminalisation.

Dr. Dadusc coordinates the 'Social Movements and Radical Politics' strand of the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics (CAPPE - University of Brighton). Moreover, she contributes to the organisation of the 'Radical Housing Forum' and related reading group.

I write about and research contemporary critical theories and radical politics. This includes work in continental philosophy, populism, radical forms of politics and protest, discourse theory and deconstruction and the politics of inequality.

Robin Dunford's research addresses humanitarian intervention, the responsibility to protect, human rights, decolonial ethics and the politics of resistance.

 1.     Civilian Protection, Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect

With Michael Neu (University of Brighton), Dunford is the author of Just War and the Responsibility to Protect: A Critique. This book argues that debates on Just War and the Responsibility to Protect fail to consider already existing forms of intervention – including arms trading, attempts to stoke ethnic tension, and measures that destroy the environment – that contribute to the emergence of humanitarian crises including genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes. Dunford and Neu co-ordinate an emerging network which looks at how nonviolent approaches offer a more effective and justifiable alternative for protecting civilian victims of atrocity crimes.

2.     Human Rights and the Politics of Resistance

Dunford has written on social movement claims for human rights, focusing in particular on recent moves towards a United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. Through a series of articles and a monograph entitled The Politics of Transnational Peasant Struggle, he has called for greater recognition within the Human Rights Council of the new collective rights demanded by activists. In collaboration with Dr Sumi Madhok (LSE) he has also reflected on how transnational rights claims disrupt West-centric analyses of how human rights travel.

 3.     Decolonial  Ethics

The third project shows how a Decolonial ethics centred on the idea of ‘pluriversality’ – a world in which many worlds fit – offers a persuasive alternative to the cosmopolitan perspective that sits at the centre of contemporary Global Ethics. Having outlined central features of a decolonial global ethics in an article in the Journal of Global Ethics, Dunford is now exploring how a decolonial perspective can reframe debates concerning environmental ethics, food justice, and development ethics.

 4. Law, Ethics and Democracy

With Dr Lara Montesinos Coleman, Dunford co-ordinates the Law, Ethics and Democracy Collective: an action-research initiative between scholars at the Universities of Brighton and Sussex. The Project, which was founded in 2016, aims to bring together work in applied philosophy and political theory with struggles against the increasingly fascistic, anti-democratic and dubiously-legal forms of economy and government we encounter today. 

Additional Roles: 

Dunford is co-lead of the Applied Ethics strand of the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics’. Together with Professor Professor Bob Brecher and Dr Michael Neu, he edits a book series with Rowman and Littlefield. Off the Fence: Morality, Politics, Society publishes short, sharply argued texts in applied moral and political philosophy, with an interdisciplinary focus. Robin is also co-convenor of the British International Studies Association's Ethics and World Politics working group.

Zeina Maasri works across the fields of Middle Eastern Studies, visual and cultural studies and global design history.

Zeina’s research investigates the intersections of visual culture, design and politics, with a particular attention on Lebanon and the Arab world. Her work is historically focused on post-1945 struggles for decolonization, transnational anti-imperialist solidarities and violent conflicts, as complicated by a global Cold War order. She approaches the Middle East less as a discrete area study but rather as a political geography interconnected with global conditions of modernity, (post)coloniality, war and conflict.

I am currently completing a monograph for Palgrave Macmillan, Donald Winnicott and the Politics of Care, due in 2021. More broadly, my work encompasses psychoanalysis, care theory, cultural studies and critical theory. I am interested in psychoanalysis as a practice of care, and in the relationship betwen care practices and politics. I have a particular interest in the work of Winnicott, psychoanalytic feminism, and understanding and theorising the relationship between psychoanalysis, politics and modernity.

Andy Knott works in political theory, with a specific interest in political subjects, especially individualism and the people of populism, as well as debates across contemporary democratic theory.

Current research is focused on populism, with an interest in drawing on theoretical, historical and contemporary accounts of this complex political phenomenon. Recent projects have involved: the thorny question of defining populism; analysing populism's beginnings; left-wing populism; and, populism and political subjects.

Andy is also working on a longer-term historical project on individualism, drawing in Hobbes, Locke, Defoe and Swift, Smith, Bentham, Mill, Hobhouse, Hayek and other neoliberals.

Research interests also include Laclau, Mouffe, discourse theory, radical democracy, and their roots in the likes of Machiavelli and Gramsci.

Anthony Leaker has a background in literature and philosophy, with a particular focus on Wittgenstein and contemporary North American fiction. 

His research on contemporary fiction is primarily focused on the critique of neoliberal work practices. His work on Wittgenstein examines the political aesthetics of his later philosophy. He also researches on questions of cultural representation and transnational populist politics. He is currently writing a book on Free Speech. 

My academic research and expertise is wideranging. While my PhD work focused on epistemology and metaphysics in Kant's theoretical philosophy, I have research interest in German Idealism, Neo-Kantianism, the Frankfurt School, Critical Realism, Speculative Realism, Marxist political economy and social theory, post-foundational political theory, structuralism and post-structuralism, and the historical and ideological roots of liberalism and conservatism.   

Dr Victoria Margree is a specialist in the literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and in women's writing and feminist theory. She has published a book on the second wave feminist theorist, Shulamith Firestone; and co-edited an essay collection on fin de siecle popular fiction author, Richard Marsh. She is also co-founder of the Short Story Network, a network for researchers of the short story of the long 19th century.

She is currently completing a monograph entitled 'British Women's Short Supernatural Fiction, 1860-1930: Our Own Ghostliness' (Palgrave, forthcoming November 2019). This explores how the ghost story functioned as a public forum for negotiating women's experiences in rapidly changing social conditions, looking at stories by Margaret Oliphant, Charlotte Riddell, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Edith Nesbit, Alice Perrin, Eleanor Scott and Violet Hunt.

Dr Michael Neu researches in political and moral philosophy, with special interests in the politics and ethics of violence. He has published on contemporary just war theory, the "Responsibility to Protect", sweatshops, torture and the notion of "complicity". His current research is on "friendship".

Raphael’s research is in the areas of protest and social movements, criminology and criminal justice, and social and political theory. He is the author of a book on European social movements (Against Old Europe, Routledge) and he has published widely on protest, policing and critical theory. His work has been published in leading academic journals such as Citizenship Studies, Critical Social Policy, Social Movement Studies, Environmental Politics, Sociology Compass and the European Journal of Social Theory.

He currently leads a research project that scrutinises the public inquiry into undercover policing in England and Wales, with initial funds coming from Brighton University's Rising Stars Award. Raphael was interviewed about the research on the European TV network ARTE and has provided expert commentary on the delays and secrecy clouding the inquiry in the Independent, the Conversation and a range of blogs.

Previously he has received the Colin Seymour-Ure prize for his undergraduate thesis from the University of Kent, a four-year studentship from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for his doctoral research at the University of Manchester and a Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Nottingham.

Raphael currently serves on the Editorial Board of Sociology Research Online (since 2015) and on the Management Board of the university's Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics. He is a member of the British Society of Criminology, the Socio-Legal Studies Association, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Rebecca Searle is a historian whose work focuses on the ways in which the study of the past can be used to make critical interventions in the politics of the present. She established and co-ordinates the Housing Forum, an initiative to bring together academics, community organisations and policy makers to develop local solutions to the housing crisis. Her research interests include the history of the housing crisis; the global history of contemporary capitalism; the history of twentieth century Britain; and war and conflict in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She is the Course leader for BA (Hons) War, Conflict and Modernity degree within the Humanities programme.

Zöe Sutherland’s main research is on the politics and aesthetics of contemporary artistic practice, focusing on the complex ‘global’ character of this period. Zöe's specialism is in the Conceptual Art movement of the 1960s-70s, often taken to be the index of art’s ‘globalisation’. By situating Conceptual Art within a more general and heterogenous ‘conceptualist’ tendency inherent to postwar artistic practice in many parts of the world, Zöe’s work attempts to trace the varying manifestations—and resistances—to the conceptual form that emerged through the radical politics and aesthetics of different regions.

Zöe also writes about feminist theory and politics, focusing on issues of gender, social reproduction, reproductive labour and reproductive technologies. Her emerging research interests are around the intersection of gender, race, class and old age, analysing the set of complex and varied trajectories—relation to work, reproductive labour, the family, state benefits—that impact upon socio-economic positions in later life. She is especially interested in how the triple problem of the financial crisis, the housing crisis and the issue of an ageing population will impact economically, psychologically and emotionally in the near future, and what kind of radical alternatives to housing for the elderly might be possible.

Zöe's broader research interests include continental philosophy, critical theory, the global history of contemporary capitalism and historical forms of radical and revolutionary politics. She is the Module co-ordinator for ‘The History of Sex and Gender’ on the BA (Hons) Critical Histories degree within the Humanities programme.

Clare Woodford is Principal Lecturer in Political Philosophy in the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics (CAPPE)  School of Humanities, University of Brighton; director of the CAPPE Critical Theory research group strand; degree leader for BA (Hons) Philosophy, Politics and Ethics; and co-editor of Rowman and Littlefield’s Polemics series. She is the author of articles and chapters on democratic disorientation and ambivalence, the work of Rancière, Butler, Cavell, Honig, Rawls, Laclau and Foucault with respect to performance, extremism, transnational populism, democratic activism and the ethics of friendship. Her first book Disorienting democracy: politics of emancipation (London; Routledge) juxtaposed Rancière’s thought with that of Butler, Cavell, Menke and Derrida to draw out the practical implications of his writing for emancipatory politics. She is currently working on a second book on love and desire in democratic theories of the subject. Clare works at the interstices of political philosophy, poststructuralism and democratic theory. Questioning the division between theory and practice, passivity and action, she rethinks ethics, education, literature and aesthetics for a powerful conceptualization of democracy as ongoing egalitarian emancipatory struggle.

Clare’s research is primarily motivated by concern about the relationship between inequality and violence and unrest and how this plays out in advanced capitalist democracy. In a more general sense she is fascinated by concepts of social order and disorder; finitude and the edges of being and knowledge; the inter-play of faith, reason, belief and action; performance and politics and the varied ways in which social animals communicate with one another and both make themselves (or fail to make themselves) understood and how we seek (or fail to seek) to understand others.

Clare is available to supervise PhDs in any of the above areas. Please email enquiries to c.woodford@brighton.ac.uk.

Current PhD funding opportunities:

http://www.southcoastdtp.ac.uk/apply/

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