Open access publishing (OA) not only removes price and permission restrictions to academic research, but also represents an opportunity to reassess what publishing means to the humanities. OA is increasingly on the agenda for humanities researchers in the UK, having been mandated in various forms by universities and governmental funders strongly…[Read more]

Presentation delivered at ISMPP 2019.

This is the submission (unedited) version of the article published in Times Higher Education on April 11, 2019, which argues that the market-based competition that fuels so much of academic life is doing us all far more harm than good.

A statistical analysis of usage data for open-access ebooks from two different publishers and from a free ebook distribution platform indicates that open-access ebook usage is distributed following log-normal statistics. Using a quantity related to the logarithm of download counts, dubbed the “open-factor”, will measure impact in better ali…[Read more]

On June 17, 2018, the Aquarius, a boat carrying refugees, docked in Valencia. The wave of solidarity that ran through the city and neighboring towns in response to this arrival was intermingled with ignorance of a phenomenon—migration across the Mediterranean Sea—that has been a historical constant, and which indexes both the aspirations and fea…[Read more]

This paper will consider the continued significance of television seasonality, even in the era of on-demand and timeshifting. It will draw upon my own research into seasonality and genre, as well as the research of other academics, including that from the special issue of the Journal of Popular Television and the subsequent dossier on Christmas…[Read more]

This paper will explore the use of the English landscape as a source of sublime horror, particularly through a shift in perception from idyllic to ominous. Where Peter Hutchings has indicated the importance of the ‘uncanny landscape’ as a fairly stable location for wrestling with modernity, this chapter will investigate those moments of slippage…[Read more]

This short article offers a perspective on the social organization of repair and re-use of public infrastructures in the UK today by focusing on an former public library now transferred to a social enterprise which also hosts a repair centre for the processing of used household goods.

María Montes, musicologist expert in Medieval Music, interviewed me on April 6th, 2019 on my experience designing and teaching a course on Medieval Iberian Literature and History using the HBO Show “Game of Thrones” as a thematic axis.

Relying on the Nigeria Watch database and newspaper reports from August 2014 to April 2018, this study analyses the root causes, patterns, and politicisation of the farmers/herdsmen conflicts in Nigeria. This study critically examines the relationship between climate change, land disputes, and the patterns of farmers/ herdsmen conflicts in…[Read more]

Essay for the online manual on how to open a pirate kindergarden, commissioned by Soprasotto and WeMake, Milan (IT).

Punk in Indonesia has often been described as a spectacular performance of disorder and resistance, a youthful style that posed a disruptive challenge to the authoritarian hierarchy and discipline of the New Order regime. The punk scene in Bandung has developed in the context of what is often referred to as ‘post-authoritarian’ Indonesia. Punk giv…[Read more]

An interpretation of the Red Mammoth Panel in Chauvet linking Chauvet to Lascaux in a single ritual landscape

The diagram depicts the aims of an academic career that exhibits intellectual leadership: sharing knowledge, expanding opportunity, contributing to greater transparency and accelerating creativity. Intellectual leaders engage in mentorship of others, formally as instructors and informally. They also engage in stewardship of the institutional…[Read more]

On the phenomenon of online hashtag syllabi as a digital tool used by recent political movements, particularly in the US, to instigate processes of political pedagogy.

Should philosophy help address the problems of non-philosophers or should it be something isolated both from
other disciplines and from the lay public? This question became more than academic for philosophers working in
UK universities with the introduction of societal impact assessment in the national research evaluation exercise,
the REF.…[Read more]

In “Culture Is Ordinary,” Raymond Williams challenged the then prevalent notion that “culture” is a phenomenon possessed only by social elites and educated highbrows, and attempted to replace it with a more expansive vision of culture as something commonly found at all levels of a social hierarchy. A truly democratic society, he insisted, could n…[Read more]

Le mouvement féministe haïtien vient de célébrer ses 100 ans: occasion idéale pour réfléchir à la réalité des Haïtiennes, tout en y intégrant des courants de pensée européens, américains et panafricains.Le mouvement féministe haïtien vient de célébrer ses 100 ans: occasion idéale pour réfléchir à la réalité des Haïtiennes, tout en y in…[Read more]

Book chapter of: Dejouer le silence: contre discours sur les femmes haïtiennes

This article shows how I have been lately combining my research in the cultural
history of the Spanish Middle Ages and Early Renaissance with the TV show Game
of Thrones for teaching purposes. I have been able to design a capstone seminar to
attract students interested in the popular medievalising TV fiction, proving them
than most of the…[Read more]