The Academic Bubble

24/12/2024

My latest article for the Saturday Evening Post: On Jesus Jones, ‘Right Here, Right Now’, and post-Cold War geopolitics in popular music.

After Jesus Jones wrote a song about an era of grand historical transformation, they learned that you can’t control how people interpret it.

24/12/2024

NEW: 15(!) years on, I reflect in this piece on the 2009 UK Christmas No 1 chart battle, which pitted Rage Against the Machine and a Facebook campaign against X-Factor winner Joe McElderry.

The 2009 battle to be UK Christmas No 1 pitted competing ideas of musical tradition against each other, as well as bringing legacy and new media together.

18/12/2024

NEW: My piece on Conclave and its depiction of ideological schisms, political manoeuvres, and scandalous revelations in the Catholic Church (and beyond).

In its depiction of the Vatican in flux following the death of the Pope, Conclave explores the ideological schisms, political workings, and impact of scandal in the contemporary Catholic Church.

14/12/2024

NEW: My piece on the 1941 film The Devil and Daniel Webster, its diabolical view of contracts, and reimagining of American history, in the wake of the New Deal.

In pitting the celebrated nineteenth-century politician against the devil himself, this film reimagines the economic and legal transformations of that era through the prism of the New Deal.

01/12/2024

NEW: Latest weekly round-up of reading and listening recommendations, covering contemporary American, German, Romanian, and Cypriot politics, among other topics.

A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.

19/11/2024

NEW: This week's round-up of recent reading and listening recommendations, covering war remembrance, authoritarian and fascist regimes, and contemporary American politics, among other topics.

A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.

16/11/2024

NEW: On Duck and the Diesel Engine, and the treatment of themes of heritage and modernity, and of nationalised and independent railways, in The Railway Series.

The rivalry between the two characters at the heart of this book encapsulated the contest between competing versions of the British railway system’s present and future.

14/11/2024

NEW: On what legal and film scholars can gain from thinking about the treatment of the law as a theme in Hollywood cinema in the age of the New Deal.

There is much to be learned by thinking about 1930s debates on American jurisprudence and about Hollywood legal dramas in conjunction with one another.

13/11/2024

With my newsletter passing 500 subscribers recently 🥳, it seems a good time to remind people that by signing up to it, you can read my regular posts about my research and contemporary politics and culture, while paid subscribers can access my full archive of posts going back over a year.

Paid subscriptions are £3.50 per month or £35 for a year, but the first 12 months are available at a 50% discount. So do considering signing up -if you haven’t done so already - and helping to support my work. And all shares of my work are much appreciated too. X

This is the index for the full archive of posts on The Academic Bubble, organised by series, topic, and theme.

10/11/2024

NEW: My weekly round-up of recommended reading and listening, taking in anti-racist activisms, film, and comparative and transnational politics, among other topics.

A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.

03/11/2024

NEW: On The Apprentice, Roy Cohn’s relationship with Donald Trump, and the connection between law, real estate, and right-wing politics from the 1950s and the present day.

The depicted relationship between Roy Cohn and Donald Trump links law, real estate, and politics, as well as establishing a lineage of the American right running from the 1950s to the present day.

28/10/2024

NEW: My latest weekly round-up of reading and listening recommendations, including Palestine-Israel, late 20th-Century American politics, and Hollywood film, among other themes.

A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.

23/10/2024

NEW: On First Blood and the clash between Rambo and Sheriff Teasle as a clash between two right-wing visions of America.

The increasingly destructive competition between Vietnam veteran John Rambo and small-town Sheriff Will Teasle is at essence a battle between two rival, right-wing visions of America.

21/10/2024

NEW: This week's round-up of recommended reading and listening, with an especially Ottoman/post-Ottoman flavour (as well as other themes such as film and international law).

A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.

12/10/2024

NEW: My piece on the positive reception of Passport to Pimlico upon its release in 1949, and the centrality of national identity and anti-statism to those reviews.

Passport to Pimlico’s contemporary reviews stressed the film’s qualities as a specifically national form of comedy, while also relishing its antiauthoritarian and anti-statist elements.

11/10/2024

I've produced a new index for the archive of posts on my The Academic Bubble newsletter, to help guide readers around the (increasingly large) volume of stuff I've written for it over the past year or so, so please do check it out (and share!): https://academicbubble.substack.com/p/archive-index

All posts are paywalled after a month. Paid subscriptions are available at a 50% discount of £1.75 per month or £17.50 per year for the first 12 months. So please do consider taking out a paid subscription to access everything I've written for the newsletter, and to support my work.

09/10/2024

NEW: The first post in a miniseries I'm writing on 'Universities, Solidarity, and Boycotts' for UCU Commons's blog, looking in this instance at the boycott of South African universities during Apartheid.

Part I: Apartheid and the Boycott of South African Universities By Dion Georgiou Introduction This is the first in a series of blogs about international movements to boycott the universities of nat…

01/10/2024

NEW: My weekly round-up of reading and listening recommendations, covering politics and conflict in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, among other topics.

A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.