As part of Birkbeck Arts Week 2015 (see video about this below), I'm organising a panel titled "Environmental Futures: Oil, Ecology, Petrocultures" on Monday 18th May 2015, 2-5pm. Birkbeck Arts Week 2015 from The Derek Jarman Lab on Vimeo. Oil shapes our geopolitics...

The BBC World Service invited me to be interviewed for a programme titled "Crunch Lit," which explored the rise in recent novels and plays dealing with the 2008 financial crash and post-2008 economic conditions. Journalist Audrey Tinline was interested in examining the way in which...

I've been invited to take part in the BFI Voyager Virtual Festival on Science Fiction, which is being co-organised by the BFI and HarperCollins' Harper Voyager Books imprint, which publishes leading fantasy and science fiction. The virtual festival is taking place on...

I was approached by the BBC production team in October 2014 to consult on a Science Fiction timeline that they were organising, to advertise the BBC's forthcoming Science Fiction iPlayer 3-part documentary. You can view the timeline by clicking on the image below, or visiting the...

I've been invited to give a keynote talk at King's College London on Thursday 4th September 2014, as part of a training event for AHRC-funded PhD students at the London School of Economics, Queen Mary University of London, and King's College London. The event is...

In August 2014, I was invited to give a workshop on "Utopian Theory & Practice" for the SF/F Now conference at the University of Warwick with Dr Lisa Garforth (Newcastle University). SF/F Now was held as a 2-day international conference exploring the...

In the Autumn, Spring and Summer Terms of 2014-15, I'll be teaching a new undergraduate module on Science Fiction with my Birkbeck colleague Dr Joe Brooker, as an optional module at Level 6 on our BA English programme. The module introduces students to some of the key concepts and...

On Tuesday 8th July 2014, I'll be doing a Tweet Chat Q&A for the UK academic jobs website jobs.ac.uk – from 12.45pm GMT for one hour. The discussion will be taking place on the dedicated #jobsQ hashtag, which brings together postgraduate students and early career...

As Director of Birkbeck's MA in Contemporary Literature and Culture, I've been teaching the programme's first core module on "Reading the Contemporary" since 2013. This course introduces students to a range of contemporary literary, cinematic, visual and theoretical...

In Spring 2014, I convened the second half of Birkbeck's undergraduate core module, "Writing London," which is taught in the first year of the BA English degree. The module is team-taught by several of Birkbeck's academic staff and is designed...

I've been convening Birkbeck's core undergraduate module "The Novel" since 2013, which is taught in the second year of the BA English degree. My lectures on this module included The Rise of the Novel, Epic and the Novel, Naturalism, Modernism, Postmodernism, The...

Since joining Birkbeck, University of London as Lecturer in Modern & Contemporary Literature in 2013, I've been teaching the MA optional module "Time for Revolution: Reading Time in the 20th Century", which is available to students on the MA Contemporary Literature and...

It's almost 2 years since I founded the open access journal Alluvium, which publishes short, topical articles written by leading academics on 21-century writing and 21st-century literary criticism. Launched in June 2012 with my colleague Dr Martin Eve, the journal has gone from strength...

I'm delighted to be able to announce that the Open Library of Humanities (OLH) is being funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, who have provided a substantial start-up grant to the University of Lincoln to build the technological platform, business model and prepare for launching both...

I recently designed the new website for Birkbeck's Centre for Contemporary Literature, working closely with my colleague and Director of the Centre, Dr Joe Brooker. The Centre supports cutting-edge research into late 20th and 21st-century literature by the vibrant postgraduate and...

In my capacity as Co-Director for the Open Library of Humanities publishing project I was asked to give several talks around Open Access Week 2013. These included the following: "Non-traditional research outputs" (invited lecture as part of a workshop on intellectual property), 12th...

I was recently invited to give a talk as part of a panel on "Promising Business Models" at the Open Access Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences conference, with my colleague and Co-Director of the Open Library of Humanities (OLH) Dr Martin Paul Eve. The OLH is...

On Thursday 27th June 2013, I was invited to deliver a guest lecture at Harvard University with my colleague Dr Martin Paul Eve (with whom I direct the Open Library of Humanities). The lecture was co-sponsored by Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the Mahindra...

The debate over "gold" open access in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) was explored in February in the Times Higher Education cover story. The article featured interview material with Dr Martin Paul Eve and myself, as Academic Project Directors of the Open Library of...