Dr Angharad Closs Stephens

I am a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Swansea University and before moving here in January 2016, I was Senior Lecturer (2015-16) and Lecturer (2007-2015) in the Geography Department at Durham University. I specialise in Political and Cultural Geographies. I have a PhD (2008) and MRes (2003, Distinction) in International Relations from Keele University, a Masters Degree in Gender Studies from the London School of Economics (2002, Distinction) and BSc in Political Studies from Aberystwyth University (2001, First Class Honours). I am the author of The Persistence of Nationalism: from imagined communities to urban encounters (Routledge, 2013), the co-editor of Terrorism and the Politics of Response, and I have published articles in leading journals including Cultural Geographies, International Political Sociology, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Citizenship Studies and Alternatives: Global, Local, Political. I have presented my work across the UK and Europe as well as in the US, Kenya and Japan. I am Assistant Editor for the journal, Citizenship Studies. 

Areas of Expertise

  • Nationality and Nationalism
  • Affect and atmosphere
  • Political geographies
  • Cultural geographies
  • Politics of security identity and terror

Publications

  1. Sounding Europe: Nationality and the affects of language. In Tales of Sonic Displacement: A Sound-based Artist Residency Network. (pp. 193-198). Edicoes Nodar, Q-02, DISK Berlin, Hai Art, Binaural/Nodar & CCA Ujazdowski Castle.
  2. & (2017). Atmospheric memories: Affect and minor politics at the ten-year anniversary of the London bombings. Emotion, Space and Society 23, 44-51.
  3. (2016). 'Daearyddiaethau Dychmygedig'. (Porth: Esboniadur).
    https://wici.porth.ac.uk/index.php/Daearyddiaethau_Dychmygedig
  4. (2016). National Atmospheres and the 'Brexit' Revolt. (Society and Space Open Site).
  5. (2016). The affective atmospheres of nationalism. Cultural Geographies 23, 181-198.

See more...

Teaching

  • GEC251 Daearyddiaeth Wleidyddol

    Sut awn ni ati i feddwl am y byd gwleidyddol? Pa wahaniaeth mae Daearyddiaeth yn ei wneud i¿r modd ry¿n ni¿n meddwl am wleidyddiaeth? Bydd y modiwl hwn yn ymdrin â¿r cwestiynau yma drwy ddadleuon beirniadol a chyfredol yn naearyddiaeth gwleidyddol ynghyd â meysydd tebyg. Bydd y modiwl yn cychwyn trwy edrych ar sut y death y system genedl-wladwriaethol fodern i rym law yn llaw gyda chyfalafiaeth yn Ewrop, ynghyd â chyffyrddiadau trefediaethol. Byddwn yn astudio¿r modd y mae¿r system wleidyddol hon yn parhau i dra-arglwyddiaethu tra¿n ymhel hefyd â ffyrdd gwahanol o feddwl am ddinasyddiaeth, gofod a gwleidyddiaeth. Mae¿n amser cyffrousiI fod yn astudio gwleidyddiaeth gan fod cymaint o esiamplau o straen ar y system wladwriaethol; mae daearyddwyr mewn sefyllfa dda i archwilio¿r tensiynau hynny. Bydd y cwrs yn cyflwyno myfyrwyr i ffyrdd cadarn o feddwl am y byd gwleiddydol ynghyd ag i ystyried ffyrdd gwahanol o feddwl am fydoedd eraill posib. How do we begin to think about the political world? What difference does Geography make to our understandings of politics? This module will address these questions by engaging with critical and cutting-edge debates in Political Geography as well as related fields. The module will begin by analysing the modern way of understanding world politics as based on a system of sovereign states, which was established alongside the rise of capitalism in Europe and its colonial encounter with the rest of the world. We will explore the dominance of this way of imagining the political world whilst also examining various attempts at thinking space, politics and citizenship differently. This is an exciting time to be studying politics as there are so many examples from the world around us of the strain on the principle of state sovereignty and geographers are especially well placed to explore these tensions and limit points. This course will help guide students to develop a robust understanding of the political world we have inherited and to uncover ways of thinking about other possible worlds.

  • GEC263B Cynnal Ymchwil Gymdeithasol : Prosiect

    This module builds upon student knowledge of social research methods (delivered in GEG263A) through the formulation of a research project. The project-based module develops the student's understanding and experience of the research process, from formulating a research question, identifying appropriate aims and objectives, devising a research design and selecting suitable data collection methods. Data is collected through group work and is aggregated into a shared dataset for individual analysis by each student, including statistical and qualitative analytical techniques. This culminates in a written report on the process, results and conclusions of the research. Contact time includes preparatory lectures, mentored group work and help/advice sessions.

  • GEG251 Political Geographies

    How do we begin to think about the political world? What difference does Geography make to our understandings of politics? This module will address these questions by engaging with critical and cutting-edge debates in Political Geography as well as related fields. The module will begin by analysing the modern way of understanding world politics as based on a system of sovereign states, which was established alongside the rise of capitalism in Europe and its colonial encounter with the rest of the world. We will explore the dominance of this way of imagining the political world whilst also examining various attempts at thinking space, politics and citizenship differently. This is an exciting time to be studying politics as there are so many examples from the world around us of the strain on the principle of state sovereignty and geographers are especially well placed to explore these tensions and limit points. This course will help guide students to develop a robust understanding of the political world we have inherited and to uncover ways of thinking about other possible worlds.

  • GEG252B Geographical Fieldwork skills: Berlin

    The module is concerned with identifying and defining geographical questions in Berlin and applying the relevant geographical skills, knowledge and techniques to these questions. The general aims are to observe, analyse and achieve an understanding of the varied geographies and landscapes of the city. The emphasis is on the cultural, political, urban and economic geographies of Berlin, focussing on landscapes of power and memory, counter-culture and gentrification, and the economic transformation of post-Socialist Berlin. The module comprises preparatory lectures and small-group preparation work in Swansea, and a week's fieldwork in Berlin. Assessment is entirely through coursework.

  • GEG263A Conducting Social Research - Methods

    The module covers research project design and data collection methods. Students are introduced to the availability of different data sources and to the predominant research methods in human geography and the social sciences, including questionnaire surveys, secondary data sources, focus groups, interviews, participant observation and ethnography, and visual and textual methodologies.

  • GEG263B Conducting Social Research - Project

    This module builds upon student knowledge of social research methods (delivered in GEG263A) through the formulation of a research project. The project-based module develops the student's understanding and experience of the research process, from formulating a research question, identifying appropriate aims and objectives, devising a research design and selecting suitable data collection methods. Data is collected through group work and is aggregated into a shared dataset for individual analysis by each student, including statistical and qualitative analytical techniques. This culminates in a written report on the process, results and conclusions of the research. Contact time includes preparatory lectures, mentored group work and help/advice sessions.

  • GEG268 Dissertation Preparation

    The module prepares students for their independent research dissertation through dissertation fairs, lectures and a series of tutorials focusing upon the formulation and construction of a research proposal. The module also includes three lectures which explore career opportunities for Geography graduates and skills to enhance graduate employability.

Supervision

  • Challenging Far-Right Extremism: The other side of the coin? (current)

    Student name:
    PhD
    Other supervisor: Dr Amanda Rogers
    Other supervisor: Mr Robert Bideleux
    Other supervisor: Dr Helen Brocklehurst

  • Untitled (current)

    Student name:
    MSc
    Other supervisor: Dr Martina Tazzioli

  • Untitled (current)

    Student name:
    PhD
    Other supervisor: Dr Charles Musselwhite

  • Consuming and building multiculturalism: exploring the meanings of food in Bristol (current)

    Student name:
    PhD
    Other supervisor: Prof Marcus Doel

  • Untitled (current)

    Student name:
    PhD
    Other supervisor: Prof Marcus Doel

  • From City to Nation of Sanctuary: Examining the Political Geographies of Citizenship (current)

    Student name:
    PhD
    Other supervisor: Prof Marcus Doel
    Other supervisor: Dr Martina Tazzioli

  • Comparing attitudes to community, self and the other among youth in rural Pembrokeshire and ethnic Somaliland youth in Bute Town Cardiff (current)

    Student name:
    PhD
    Other supervisor: Dr Keith Halfacree

Administrative Responsibilities

  • Chair of the Athena SWAN Committee - Geography

    2016 - Present

More about me

My interdisciplinary training informs both my research and teaching work. I have summarised my research and teaching interests into six key themes below. My teaching is very much informed by my research, by what I’m reading and working on at the time, as well as by events unfolding in the world around us. I find working with students extremely valuable in helping me develop other ways of seeing the world and in reminding me of what is at stake politically. I am responsible for the Political Geographies course at Swansea University Geography Department and a member of the teaching team for the Berlin fieldtrip. If you would like to  attend a class as an auditor, please get in touch by email. If you are a former student of mine enquiring about a reference, please make sure that you send me a full CV including academic results for particular courses.  

You can access my publications via ‘Cronfa’ (Swansea University’s Research Repository); www.academia.edu or by emailing me. You can follow me on twitter via @angharadcloss

Research and teaching themes:

The Politics of Nationalism

I have a longstanding interest in trying to understand the dynamics, histories and geographies of nationalism. My book unpacks what I describe as a ‘nationalist imaginary’ and its persistence in framing how we read and engage with the political world. Using examples from the political landscape of the War on Terror and various attempts at confronting the imaginative geographies of ‘us’ and ‘them’, it offers a study of the difficulties of thinking beyond nationalism. 

The Politics of Affect and Atmospheres

More recently, I have been engaging the question of nationalism by drawing on literatures in cultural and feminist studies, the politics of emotion, and human geography on affects, moods and atmospheres with the aim of asking how we experience nationality as a set of feelings circling in the air. I am particularly interested in how national affects become heightened in times of ‘crisis’ or through particular events. I have developed this work through an article on the London 2012 Olympic Games titled ‘The Affective Atmospheres of Nationalism’. 

Citizenship and the politics of crisis

I have an interest in examining political responses to ‘terrorist’ events across Europe, and in particular, how nationalist and cosmopolitan discourses, as well as ideas about strangers and foreigners circulate through such events.  This work began with an article responding to the London bombings on 7 July 2005, a co-edited book titled Terrorism and the Politics of Response with Dr Nick Vaughan-Williams and has recently included writing on the 10 year anniversary of those events. I convened a series of responses to the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris on 7 January 2015, bringing scholarly insights to this contemporary political event.  

Citizenship and cities 

I find writings about cities and the urban experience – both creative and academic – extremely fruitful in presenting us with alternative ways of thinking about political community and subjectivity – through their emphasis on cosmopolitanism and living with strangers. I have drawn on such ideas in writing about London, New York and Berlin.  Most recently, I have written a short article titled: ‘Urban Atmospheres: Feeling like a city?’ for a forum titled ‘Global/Urban/Politics’ in International Political Sociology (March 2015) convened by Dr Jennifer Bagelman and Dr Delacey Tedesco.  

Geographical imaginations 

Questions of geographical imaginations are developed most fully in my book, and in a special issue of Environment and Planning D: Society and Space (2012) that I guest edited (with Dr Vicki Squire) on the subject of ‘Citizenship without Community’. I have experimented with other models for imagining political community e.g. through a web, through the site of the city, and as an ‘affective atmosphere’. I have contributed to the Welsh Dictionary of Key Concepts, Yr Esboniadur, on this topic – ‘Daearyddiaeth Dychmygedig’ (Imaginative Geographies). 

Creative geographies and social/spatial theory 

Across my work, I engage Political Geography through the realm of the creative arts including art installations, performance, films, novels and other creative writings. I feel that creative works often offer accounts of political change that are more attuned to the ambiguities and uncertainties of everyday experience. This is in contrast to the ways in which we are often taught Politics – as ‘decisions’, ‘actions’, ‘leadership’, and so on. In terms of social theory, at the moment I’m drawing on the works of Lauren Berlant, Kathleen Stewart, William Connolly and Achille Mbembe; I have a longstanding interest in the works of Judith Butler, Wendy Brown, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Derrida and Homi Bhabha. At Durham University Geography Department, I convened the Politics-State-Space research cluster (2014-16). Previously, I was co-convenor of the British International Studies Association Poststructural Politics Working Group (2007-11). 

If you are interested in working on any of the above themes for a Masters by Research or a PhD, do get in touch. Swansea University Geography Department provides a collegiate and supportive environment for a research project and is situated within walking distance of good coffee and the sea! 

Rwy’n siarad Cymraeg ac yn gallu arolygu prosiectau ymchwil yn Gymraeg neu yn Saesneg. Mae gen i ddiddordeb mewn meddwl am sut mae termau ôl-strwythurol yn trosi i’r Gymraeg ac mewn datblygu iaith, geirfa a chystrawen i drin a thrafod Gwleidyddiaeth yn Gymraeg mewn ffyrdd newydd ac adfywiol. 

Calling from outside the UK?

+44 1792 606287