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Professor Martin Coward

Martin

Professor of International Politics, Head of School

Email: spir-head@qmul.ac.uk
Telephone: 020 7882 8594
Room Number: Arts One, 2.36
Office Hours: By appointment (contact: spir-head@qmul.ac.uk)

Profile

I joined SPIR in 2023 as Professor of International Politics. Before Queen Mary, I was at Manchester, Newcastle and Sussex. I started my academic journey with a BA in film studies and an MA in ideology and discourse analysis before doing PhD on urbicide in Bosnia. I have a broad interest, therefore in discourse, social theory and continental philosophy as well as popular culture.

My research is theoretically oriented, but empirically informed. I have focused on patterns of violence against cities and infrastructure. I have called this destruction urbicide. Urbicide attacks the plurality of cites. I have broadened this research focus to include patterns of war and genocide – in particular publishing on the networked nature of modern war.

I have also published in the area of international relations theory – in particular on post-globalisation, network discourses and affect.

More recently, my research has focused on the way the anthropocene is imagined. I have examined the way in which speculative fiction and governmental reports have imagined the future of humanity in an era of catastrophic climate change. In particular I have identified what I call a politics of redemption and hope in these imagined futures.

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