January 11th, 2012
Originally posted at www. chasing dragons.org
North East Doctoral Training Centre ESRC Funded Studentships in Politics
Politics at Newcastle University is pleased to announce the availability of ESRC funded PhD studentships as part of the North East Doctoral Training Centre. We are seeking high calibre candidates interested in doctoral study who have clearly defined research projects and wish to be considered for these awards.
The studentships will be allocated on a competitive basis and include 1+3, +3, 3.75 and 2+3 awards. The deadline for approaching prospective supervisors is 27 January 2012. The deadline for submitting completed applications is 24 February 2012.
Preliminary inquiries can be directed to Dr. Kyle Grayson until 30 January, 2012 and to Dr. Martin Coward after that time.
Continue reading Doctoral Studentships in Politics at Newcastle University»
Tags: ESRC, Funding, NEDTC, Newcastle University, North East Doctoral Training Centre, PhD, studentships
Posted in Postgraduate Research | No Comments »
November 29th, 2011
Recently I finally found time to play my way through the single-player campaign of Modern Warfare 3 (MW3). As those who follow me on twitter know, I had been anticipating MW3 for a while now. Throughout the lead-in to the game’s release we had been treated to epic trailers showing the destruction of cities such as New York and Paris.
Given that I am currently trying to write about visions of urban cataclysm, playing my way through an interactive – if not immersive – rendering of such visions of urban violence had been on my to-do list for a while.
Continue reading Modern Warfare 3 and the retreat from precision»
Tags: AFPAK, Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 3, MW3, precision, war, warfare, XBOX360
Posted in Comment | No Comments »
November 25th, 2011
Just over a year ago, I was invited to comment on Peter Adey’s book Aerial Life for an ‘author meets critics’ panel at the at the RGS-IBG conference. It was a real pleasure to be afforded the opportunity/excuse to read and comment on Aerial Life. The book itself is a fascinating and challenging examination of the manner in which life becomes ‘aerial’. It examines not so much what it means to be ‘in-the-air’ but the condition of being ‘air-minded’. It is less about pilots and passengers – though these make numerous appearances – than the manner in which air power ‘condition’s’ the life of those on the ground. This ‘air conditioning’ is exmplfied in excellent discussions of air power in the Gaza Strip, Malayan Insurgency and London Blitz. The concentration on the affective dimension of biopolitics is a welcome addition to the literature on the production of forms of life. My commentary, along with several others, have just been published in Political Geography. If you have an interest in vertical geographies or the biopolitics of air power I strongly recommend taking a look here.
Tags: Aerial Life, air power, biopolitics, Peter Adey, Political Geography
Posted in New Publications | No Comments »
March 7th, 2011
In a perceptive comment on the LSE-Saif Gaddafi affair, Richard Sennett notes that LSE director Howard Davies “didn’t create the problem of the dodgy donor – he succumbed to a structural danger that is built into the [UK] educational system.” To outsiders the LSE’s decsision to supervise Gaddifi’s PhD and take donations from funds he controls could appear either naive, underhand or worse. However, Sennett raises an important point that bears further consideration as it implies that we should expect more of these problematic funding arrangements in UK Higher Education in future.
Continue reading The LSE-Gaddafi affair: the lesson for UK Higher Education policy»
Tags: London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE, Saif Gaddafi, UK Higher Education, UKHE
Posted in Comment | No Comments »
January 20th, 2011
I’ve been busy for the last month or so, so have fallen behind with a few things. One of the things I wanted to publicise before Christmas was James Ash‘s New Voices seminar at Newcastle Politics on November 17th 2010. James gave a paper entitled ‘Commodifying Affect: Videogames and the Technics of Affective Amplification‘. James discussed the manner in which videogames modulate affective states in order to draw the player further into their diegetic world. He effectively used Modern Warfare 2′s Second Sun sequence as an example of how affect is modulated through the interplay of scripted an unscripted events. Overall the thing I found most interesting was the way in which he suggests affect is modulated in order to make gameplay absorbing – that is to make it an experience that occupies attention to the detriment of reflection. This helps to explain the lack of attunement to moral judgement that occurs in games where players are asked to kill and maim in ways that outside the games diegetic space they may find unpalatable.
The event was podcast – you can download it here.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
October 20th, 2010
Reflections on the future of social science in UK universities
I don’t usually comment on UK politics at martincoward.net. This is largely because I want the content on this site to reflect my particular research interests and activity. My expertise lies in the intersection of political philosophy and international politics. More specifically, my interests are in thinking about the inter-related topics of cities, security and political violence. I have therefore, largely confined myself to comments on these issues. However, as a politics scholar at a UK Higher Education (UKHE) institution, the nature and future of social sciences in UK universities is something I am both interested and invested in. Continue reading Having your cake…and paying for it»
Tags: Browne, ConDem, social science, Spending Review, tuition fees, UKHE
Posted in Comment | 2 Comments »
October 18th, 2010
My book Urbicide: The Politics of Urban Destruction is reviewed in the latest issue of Global Discourse I have supplied a introduction outlining the basic argument of Urbicide as well as a response to the reviewers.
You can find my introduction, the reviews and my response, here: http://global-discourse.com/contents/urbicide-by-martin-coward/
As with all research, the monograph represents a snapshot of thought about this variety of urban violence, rather than the last word on it. Reflecting on that snapshot, I think there is much I still agree with, but there are also things I would change. This has thus been a valuable opportunity to reflect on my argument about the widespread and deliberate destruction of urban fabric and to highlight what I think its key contributions are as well as to ponder some of its limitations.
My thanks to the reviewers for their thoughts as well as to the editors of Global Discourse for both the original invitation and their work compiling and publishing the review section.
Tags: Global Discourse, publishing, urbicide
Posted in New Publications, Writing | 1 Comment »
September 14th, 2010
Along with my colleagues Angharad Closs-Stephens, Debbie Lisle and Emily Jackson, I am organising a one day workshop at the Imperial War Museum London on 3rd December 2010. The workshop will be a joint BISA Poststructural Politics Working Group and BISA/PSA Art and Politics Group event.
Since my work turned to consider critical infrastructure and I encountered Jane Bennett’s thought provoking account of role of thing-power in the North American Blackout of 2003, I have been intrigued by the question of the materiality of political life – a question that is often only obliquely answered in the disciplines of Politics and International Relations. I hope that the discussions that are started in the December workshop will allow further explanation of the complex ecologies of political subjectivity.
I’m very excited by the group of speakers confirmed at the event so far. I also hope that we will be able to add more in the near future.We are very lucky to have Jane Bennett as well as Jeremy Deller – whose work is currently on display at the Imperial War Museum – as keynote speakers.
For those interested, here are the full details:
Continue reading The Political Life of Things»
Tags: Imperial War Museum, Jane Bennett, Jeremy Deller, materiality, political subjectivity, thing power
Posted in Events | 1 Comment »
August 25th, 2010
Reports of a 10 day traffic jam in China bring into sharp relief questions around the infrastructures of global urbanisation. This jam started on the 14th August and may last until September. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal reports that drivers on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou highway are ‘inching along little more than a third of a mile a day’. The Guardian interviews a driver that took 3 days to get through the jam. It makes the 2003 closure of the UK’s M11 by snowfall seem small by comparison. Continue reading Overloaded infrastrucure»
Tags: infrastructure, urbanisation
Posted in Comment | No Comments »
Modern Warfare 3 and the retreat from precision
November 29th, 2011Recently I finally found time to play my way through the single-player campaign of Modern Warfare 3 (MW3). As those who follow me on twitter know, I had been anticipating MW3 for a while now. Throughout the lead-in to the game’s release we had been treated to epic trailers showing the destruction of cities such as New York and Paris.
Given that I am currently trying to write about visions of urban cataclysm, playing my way through an interactive – if not immersive – rendering of such visions of urban violence had been on my to-do list for a while.
Continue reading Modern Warfare 3 and the retreat from precision»
Tags: AFPAK, Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare 3, MW3, precision, war, warfare, XBOX360
Posted in Comment | No Comments »