University of Nottingham

Graduate Student, School of Politics and International Relations

Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice

Thesis Title: Towards a Nomadic Utopianism

About

The bulk of my academic work revolves around my concept of the 'nomadic utopia'; a site of immanent, prefigurative and nonhierarchical social relations which remains a utopia only to the extent that it is open to a future (and that that future is open to a future and so on). I also develop the theory of the 'State Utopia', a site of transcendent, hierarchical social relationships which closes off the future in the name of perfection, and am interested in the operation of spaces on the 'utopian spectrum' between these two concepts.

I am interested in identifying and analysing utopian spaces in literature; music (particularly with regard to the social organisation of those who play music, rather than the sounds they produce); popular education and critical pedagogy; and the built environment.

I am currently 'curating' a collaborative utopia-writing project set on a 13.7 hectare wasteland site in Nottingham ('The Eastside Island Utopia Project') and am working in an artistic collaboration on the same site for the Wasteland Twinning project.

I am the co-founder of the Creative Commons record label Records on Ribs, play music (improvised and otherwise) and am currently writing a book on music and utopia entitled ‘The Shape of Utopia to Come’ for Zer0 Books.

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