Dr Amanda Rogers

Associate Professor, Geography

Telephone number

+44 (0) 1792 602612

Email address

Academic Office - 212
Second Floor
Wallace Building
Singleton Campus
Available For Postgraduate Supervision

About

I am an Associate Professor in Human Geography and the Geohumanities at Swansea University. My research focuses on the intersections between geography and the performing arts (especially theatre and dance), though like most geographers working in a creative field, my interests extend into other domains, including the visual and literary arts. 

My main research focuses on dance in contemporary Cambodia. I've been working on this formally since 2013, but first became interested when watching contemporary Cambodian dance whilst living in Singapore in 2008/2010. I'm interested in how the legacies of war and genocide shape creative practice today, but also in how artists use dance to explore social issues and expand the sphere of civil society. I currently hold a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship to conduct more research and write a monograph on this topic. This is provisionally entitled Choreographing Cambodia: Exploring geopolitical imaginaries of nationality and identity in contemporary dance and will be published by Bloomsbury. I have also been researching the geopolitics surrounding first Cambodian dance tour to the West after the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979) and Vietnamese occupation (1979-1989) which was in 1990 to the UK. This research was funded through a British Academy-Leverhulme Trust small grant. My website is here.

I am one of the Reviews Editors for cultural geographies and in 2017 was awarded the Dillwyn Medal by the Learned Society of Wales for the Creative Arts and Humanities. I am the Research Secretary for the Association of South East Asian Studies (UK). I also sit on the board of Papertrail Theatre Company in Cardiff and recently collaborated with Bridget Keehan on a soundscape entitled ‘Our Place’ through a Leverhulme Trust Artist-in-Residence grant. I previously worked in theatre in the U.S. and have been a creative consultant on short films such as The Orphan of Zhao Redux (dir: Daniel York) and commissioned pieces such as Cell by the dancer Ka Kou.

I am currently learning Khmer, but I have also learned Japanese, Mandarin, French and German.  

Areas Of Expertise

  • The geographies of the performing arts
  • Space, place and performance
  • The GeoHumanities
  • Identity and multiculturalism
  • Transnational cultures
  • Politics and performance

Career Highlights

Teaching Interests

I teach on a variety of courses and topics. Human Geography allows us to critically explore the world around us and to make connections between different processes in ways that few other subjects do. As such, I'm really interested in facilitating this critical, connective perspective among students. I teach on Cities, Creative Geographies, tutorial and dissertation supervision, and qualitative and creative research methods. I am currently setting up a new MSc on Society, Environment and Global Change which I co-direct with my colleague Dr Angharad Closs Stephens. This will explore the key pressing issues facing us in the world today from climate change, to development, to the politics of nationalism. 

Research Award Highlights