Dr Julian Brigstocke

Senior Lecturer in Human Geography

School of Geography and Planning

: brigstockej@cardiff.ac.uk
: +44 (0)29 2087 6085
: Room 2.91, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WA

: Media commentator
: Available for postgraduate supervision

I am an interdisciplinary cultural geographer with an interest in exploring relationships between cities, aesthetics, and authority. I specialise in cultural theory, geohumanities, and philosophies of geography. Key theoretical influences include Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, Deleuze & Guattari, Michel Serres, Gloria Anzaldua, and Sylvia Wynter. I am working on a book titled Nonauthoritarian Authority, to be published in the Royal Geographical Society - Institute of British Geographers book series. The book is structured through a series of creative experiments with the forms of geographical writing.

I currently lead a 3-year AHRC funded participatory action research project looking at gender, race, violence, and creative embodied methodologies in a favela in Rio de Janeiro.

I have also published on issues around biopolitics, authority, urban avant-gardes, art in fin-de-siecle Paris, creative geographies, affect, gender, more-than-human and experimental participatory methods, the commons, future generations, the politics of aesthetics in Foucault and Benjamin, urban infrastructure in colonial Hong Kong, and experimental neuro-urbanism methods using mobile galvanic skin response biosensors

My drop-in hour is Wednesdays 12pm. Any student may drop in to discuss anything at all. Or: please schedule a meeting with me here.

Career

Senior Lecturer, School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University (2020-present)
Lecturer, School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University (2014 - 2020).
Lecturer, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Plymouth University (2012-2014).
Research Associate, Warwick University, Department of Sociology (2012)
Senior Research Assistant, Northumbria University, Department of Sociology (2012)
Research Associate, Newcastle University, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology (2011)
Teaching Associate, Newcastle University, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology (2010-2011)
Project Editor, Canopus Books (2003-2006)

Memberships

Chair of the Royal Geographical Society's History and Philosophy of Geography Research Group
Editorial Board, GeoHumanities
Editorial Board, Aurora: Revista de Arte, Mídia e Política
Editorial Board, Cardiff University Press
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Founding member of the Authority Research Network (ARN)
Peer Review College member, Arts and Humanities Research Council (2016-2021)

Qualifications

PGDip Academic Practice, Plymouth University (2014)
PhD Human Geography, Bristol University (2011)
MSc Society & Space, Bristol University (2006)
BA (Hons) Philosophy, Bristol University (2003)

2023

Brigstocke, J., Froes, M., Cabral, C., Malanquini, L. and Baptista, G. 2023. Biosocial borders: affective debilitation and resilience amongst women living in a violently bordered favela. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers

2022

Brigstocke, J., Malanquini, L., Froes, M., Cabral, C. and Baptista, G. 2022. Disjunctive writing in the urban skinscape: bodies, borders, and the physiology of attention in a Rio de Janeiro favela. Sociological Review 70(4), pp. 810-831. (10.1177/00380261221106515)
Brigstocke, J. 2022. Resisting with authority? Anarchist laughter and the violence of truth. Social and Cultural Geography 23(2) (10.1080/14649365.2020.1727555)

2021

Brigstocke, J. and Gassner, G. 2021. Materiality, race and speculative aesthetics. Geohumanities 7(2), pp. 359-369. (10.1080/2373566X.2021.1977163)
Brigstocke, J., Bresnihan, P., Dawney, L. and Miller, N. 2021. Geographies of authority. Progress in Human Geography 45(6), pp. 1356-1378. (10.1177/0309132520986227)
Brigstocke, J. 2021. The aesthetics of sand: reclaiming Hong Kong's unsettled grounds. Geohumanities 7(2), pp. 370 -390. (10.1080/2373566X.2020.1847679)

2020

Brigstocke, J. 2020. Experimental authority in the lecture theatre. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 44(3), pp. 370-386. (10.1080/03098265.2019.1698527)

2019

Simpson, P. and Brigstocke, J. 2019. Affect. In: Atkinson, P. et al. eds. SAGE Research Methods Foundations.. London: SAGE

2018

Noorani, T. and Brigstocke, J. Facer, K. and Dunleavy, K. eds. 2018. More-than-human participatory research. Bristol: University of Bristol / AHRC Connected Communities Programme.
Brigstocke, J. 2018. Parrésia artística e a genealogia da ética em Foucault e Benjamin/ Artistic Parrhesia and the genealogy of ethics in Foucault and Benjamin. Revista Aurora 11(31), article number: 1954.
Blencowe, C., Brigstocke, J. and Noorani, T. 2018. Engines of alternative objectivity: re-articulating the nature and value of participatory mental health organisations with the Hearing Voices Movement and Stepping Out Theatre Company. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 22(3), pp. 205-222. (10.1177/1363459315590246)
Brigstocke, J. 2018. Humour, violence and cruelty in late nineteenth century anarchist culture. In: Ferretti, F. et al. eds. Historical Geographies of Anarchism: Early Critical Geographers and Present-Day Scientific Challenges. Routledge, pp. 65-86.

2017

Brigstocke, J. et al. 2017. Implicit values: uncounted legacies. In: Facer, K. and Pahl, K. eds. Valuing Interdisciplinary Collaborative Research: Beyond Impact. Policy Press, pp. 65-84.

2016

Brigstocke, J. and Tehseen, N. eds. 2016. Listening with non-human others. ARN Press.
Brigstocke, J. 2016. Exhausted futures. GeoHumanities 2(1), pp. 92-101. (10.1080/2373566X.2016.1168192)
Brigstocke, J. and Noorani, T. 2016. Posthuman attunements: aesthetics, authority and the arts of creative listening. GeoHumanities 2(1), pp. 1-7. (10.1080/2373566X.2016.1167618)

2015

Kirwan, S., Dawney, L. and Brigstocke, J. eds. 2015. Space, power and the commons: the struggle for alternative futures. London: Routledge.
Dawney, L., Kirwan, S. and Brigstocke, J. 2015. The promise of the commons. In: Kirwan, S., Dawney, L. and Brigstocke, J. eds. Space, Power and the Commons: The Struggle for Alternative Futures. London: Routledge, pp. 1-28.
Brigstocke, J. 2015. Occupy the future. In: Kirwan, S., Dawney, L. and Brigstocke, J. eds. Space, Power and the Commons: The Struggle for Alternative Futures. Routledge Research in Place, Space and Politics London: Routledge, pp. 150-165., (10.4324/9781315731995-17)
Blencowe, C., Brigstocke, J. and Noorani, T. 2015. Theorising participatory practice and alienation in health research: A materialist approach. Social Theory and Health 13(3-4), pp. 397-417. (10.1057/sth.2015.23)

2014

Brigstocke, J. 2014. Immanent authority and the performance of community in late nineteenth century Montmartre. In: Blencowe, C., Brigstocke, J. and Dawney, L. eds. Authority, Experience and the Life of Power. London: Routledge, pp. 107-126.
Blencowe, C., Dawney, L. and Brigstocke, J. eds. 2014. Authority, experience and the life of power. Routledge.
Brigstocke, J. 2014. The life of the city: space, humour, and the experience of truth in fin-de-siècle Montmartre. Studies in Historical Geography. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. (10.4324/9781315556079)
Blencowe, C., Brigstocke, J. and Dawney, L. 2014. Authority and experience. In: Blencowe, C., Dawney, L. and Brigstocke, J. eds. Authority, Experience and the Life of Power. London: Routledge, pp. 1-7.

2010

Brigstocke, J. 2010. Brigstocke on Stiegler: technics and time 2: disorientation [Review]. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 28(6), pp. 1128-1130. (10.1068/d2806rvw)

Teaching

My teaching interests lie in cultural theory and philosophies of geography, as well as cultural, social, and political geography. My teaching aims to guide students towards understandings of contemporary issues by starting from embodied and creative practices and theories.

I currently teach on modules including:

Border Spaces: Identities, Cultures, and Politics in a Globalizing World (module leader)
Critical Geographies of Race and Power
Gender, Space and Place
Urban Theory Provocations
Research Methods
Dissertations (undergraduate and postgraduate)

Research

My primary research interests lie in cultural theory, geographies of authority, philosophy of geography, geohumanities, and experimental participatory and action-research methods.

Funded Projects

Co-Designing Spaces of Care in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro: An Embodied Approach (Principal Investigator, £21,673, Global Challenges Research Fund, 2022-2023)
Transforming Atmospheric Authority: Experimental Embodiments in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro (Principal Investigator, £253,000, AHRC, 2020-2023).
What it is to Be There: Exploring grief, place and memory (Co-Applicant, £2000, Brigstow Institute, 2022)
Urban Humanities Research Network (Co-Applicant, £6134, GW4 Building Communities Programme, 2021-2022)
Harena (Principal Investigator, £3000 creative residency, Leverhulme, 2018)
Social Change Through Creativity and Culture, Brazil (Co-Investigator, Newton/AHRC, £280,000, 2016)
An Affective Map of Journeys in the Mare Complex of Favelas (Principal Investigator, Newton, £12,000, 2016)
The Museum of Living Exchange (Co-Investigator, Newton, £8000, 2016)
Participation's "Others": A Cartography of Creative Listening Practices (Principal Investigator, AHRC, £55,000, 2014 - 2015).
Starting From Values: Evaluating Intangible Legacies (Co-Investigator, AHRC, £128,000, 2014-2015).
Landscapes of Authority (Principal Investigator, Plymouth University, £3000, 2013-2014)
Authority, Knowledge and Performance in Participatory Practice (named researcher, AHRC, £40,000 (2012)
Immanent Authority and the Making of Community (named researcher, AHRC, £40,000, 2011)

Supervision

I am interested in supervising research students working in the following areas:

Cultural and non-representational geographies
Creative geographical writing
Spaces and politics of aesthetics
Geographies of power and authority
Race, gender, and intersectionality
Border spaces
Gender, Inequality and Violence in Brazil's Favelas
Geographies of Hong Kong

Current supervision

Past projects

Co-supervisor for Lyndsey Stoodley, Protection and Practice in the Littoral Zone: An Evaluation of the World Surfing Reserves Phenomenon
Co-supervisor for Laura Colebrooke, Eating sensibly: Everyday experiences of food insecurity'
Co-supervisor for Gina Kallis, An Intergenerational perspective on migrant Senses of Identity and Belonging: The Case of Greek-Cypriot Families in South-West England