Research Centre Directors

Professor Roland Axtmann

Roland Axtmann is a co-director of the Centre and also Head of the Department of Politics and International Relations at Swansea University. He is particularly interested in concepts of the political and is currently working on two projects. One concerns the reconceptualisation of the political in the current era of global change; the other examines political thought in twentieth-century Germany. On behalf of the Centre he is currently collaborating with colleagues from the Universities of Zurich, Halle and Heidelberg on an EU funded project examining protest movements in Europe since 1945. 

Dr. Alan Finlayson

Dr. Finlayson is a co-director of the Centre and also a Reader in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Swansea University. His research is concerned with the theory and analysis of political rhetoric and the forms and modes of political argument in historical and cultural context. He also writes about democratic theory, British politics and cultural political economy. He is currently involved in three ongoing research projects related to the Centre: a Leverhulme Trust funded project on the development and change of British political rhetoric over a century of media transformations (with Judi Atkins also of the Centre for the Study of Culture and Politics); a study of the interaction of drama and political theory with particular reference to Shakespeare on which he is collaborating with Liz Frazer of Oxford University; and an examination of the development of a culture of financialisation in the UK on which he is collaborating with Dr. Claes Belfrage, Dr. David Berry and Dr. Nuria Lorenzo-Dus.

Research Centre Members

Dr. Judi Atkins

Judi is a member of the Centre and Research Assistant on the Leverhulme funded project ‘How the Leader Speaks: Rhetoric, Argumentation and British Political Speech’. Her wider research is concerned with the different kinds of justification political actors give of their policies - moral, ideological and strategic – and with the ways in which we may identify and interpret these. She has published articles on this with reference to a number of policy areas in British politics.

r. David Berry

David Berry is a member of the centre and a Lecturer in the Department of Political and Cultural Studies at Swansea University. His research focuses on technology and culture and he is particularly interested in the philosophical, methodological and political challenges of digital media. He has published on the politics of open source, technology and software, and is currently developing a project, with Dr. Claes Belfrage on the Iceland and financialisation.

Professor Nicky Cooper

Nicky is a member of the centre and holds a Chair in the French Department. She is a cultural historian with specific interests in war, conflict, empire and its legacies. In particular she is interested in the combining literary-cultural studies with historical-political perspectives in order better to understand various cultural forms such as film, documentary, posters, propaganda, fiction, architecture, art, journalism, and photography. She is co-editor of the Journal of War and Culture Studies and Associate Editor of French Cultural Studies. She is currently participating in three major research projects: Colonialism in Comparative Perspective’, Sensory Perceptions of War’ and Militarised Representations.

Dr. Nuria Lorenzo-Dus

Nuria is a member of the Centre and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Applied Linguistics. Her research has been particularly focused on the analysis of cross-cultural communication and media texts. For instance, in relation to the latter, she has published the monograph Television Discourse (2008, Palgrave Macmillan). She has also examined the discursive ways in which British television property shows seek to persuade us to adopt certain lifestyles and has analysed conflict talk on US courtroom television shows. She is currently participating in two funded projects: one by the AHRC with colleagues in Warwick and Leicester Universities on media, conflict and memory; and another one by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology with colleagues at Valencia University on gender and (in)quality in political, mass media and educational (con)texts. She is currently developing a research project on cultures of financialisation along with Dr. Alan Finlayson, Dr. Claes Belfage and Dr. David Berry.

Dr. Mark Evans

Mark is a member of the Centre and also a Reader in the in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Swansea University. His research is primarily concerned with the possibilities of consensus across different cultures of justification and he has written extensively on the issue of just war and ethics in international politics. He has worked with a range of internationally recognized scholars of political theory and is the editor of the international journal Politics and Ethics. Mark is currently collaborating with colleagues from the University of Primorska, Slovenia and Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany on a project entitled Freedom and Democracy: European Perceptions, European Perspectives. He is also developing an international project on ‘Humanities as a Source for Creativity and Innovation’.

Dr. Lee Jarvis

Lee is a member of the Centre and also a Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Swansea University. His research is concerned with the dynamics of discourses, representation and performance with a particular emphasis on concepts of change and temporality in relation to the war on terror and the relationship between cultural dispositions towards security and counter terrorist polices. He is currently completing a book Times of Terror: Discourse, Temporality and the War on Terror and is also developing research project looking at website memorials to victims of terrorism.

Dr. Richard Murphy

Richard is member of the Centre and an honorary research fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations. His research is primarily focused on concepts of civilization and culture and on the interaction of political theory, aesthetics and the philosophy of history. He is currently developing a research project looking into the relationship of art and technology.

Professor Kevin Williams

Kevin is a member of the Centre and holds a chair in the Department of Media and Communication Studies at Swansea University. His research is particularly focused on the historical development of media and he also has a strong interest in the relationship between media and national identity in small nations such as Wales as well as in media and cultural policy more generally.