Our staff

staff categories

These are our Birkbeck staff categories within the Department of Politics.

Diana Coole's broad area of research is modern and contemporary political and social theory. Her work has focused on the critical theory of the early Frankfurt School and its influences (Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber), existential phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty in particular), poststructuralism (especially Foucault) and feminism. Within this field, Coole has become interested in developing a flexible critical theory (that includes genealogy, deconstruction, the phenomenology of everyday - and visceral - life, interpretive public policy, discourse analysis, ideology critique and radical political economy) and applying it to current social and political issues.
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Joni Lovenduski is Anniversary Professor of Politics, has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2007 and was elected an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2009. She is Chair of the Editorial Board of Political Quarterly and a member of the editorial boards of British Politics, The British Journal of Political Science and French Politics. Lovenduski has two main strands of current research interests: political representation and the development and implementation of equality policy in the UK and the European Union.
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Visit Joni Lovenduski's staff page

Philip Spencer was the founder and director of the Helen Bamber Centre for the Study of Rights, Conflict and Mass Violence at Kingston University. He is currently working on a study of cosmopolitanism and antisemitism (for Bloomsbury), followed by a longer history of genocide (for Reaktion Books). He is an associate of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism; a trustee of the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide; a member of the European Sociological Association Research Network for the Study of Racism and Antisemitism; and of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
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Richard Clarke taught at Birkbeck from 1988 to 2011, where he was responsible for the postgraduate programmes in Countryside and Protected Area Management and in Heritage and Environmental Interpretation, and for the Graduate Diploma in Ecology and Conservation. Since 2013, he has been Visiting Scholar at PrOBE, Westminster Business School, University of Westminster. In 2016, he was the Ben Pimlott Writer in Residence. Richard currently undertakes research, evaluation and training related to heritage management with an emphasis on community engagement and working at a 'landscape' scale.
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Paul Dixon has taught at the universities of Queen's Belfast, Bedfordshire, Leeds, Ulster, Kingston and Science Po Lille. He has published widely on conflict theory, powersharing, peace processes, war, counterinsurgency and militarisation. He established the Terrorism and Political Violence Master's at Kingston University and was awarded Outstanding Contribution to Kingston University Students for teaching in 2017.
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Anne-Marie Taylor, Team Leader, tel: +44 020 3926 1571
Rachel Llewellyn, Postgraduate and Research, tel: +44 020 3926 1572 or contact post graduate politics via email
Mitch Fryer, Undergraduate and Certificate, tel: +44 020 3926 1834 or contact undergraduate politics via email
Dan Parnell, BA Politics, Philosophy and History Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life, tel: +44 020 3926 1574 or contact undergraduate politics via email