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'We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist'. James Baldwin (1924-1987)
'Early in life, I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper...' George Orwell (1903-1949)
1992: MA in Communication, Culture & Society - Goldsmiths' College, University of London (part-time)
2000: PhD in Communication, Goldsmiths' College, University of London (part-time)
I am a Professor of Communication Studies, and a member of the MA in Cultural Analysis and Social Theory (CAST), a member of the Women & Gender Studies Program Coordinating Committee, and an associated faculty member of the Laurier Centre for Community Research, Learning & Action.
I am an elected member of the Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression Task Force that was formed in 2024 and is at present ongoing.
I served as the (interim) Coordinator for Women & Gender Studies Program from 2024 to 2025.
Since the onset of the pandemic and the rising tide of fascism, I have been increasingly forced to speak out, research and teach on the issues directly facing the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. I have been giving a presentation on the annual "Trans Day of Visibility" each year since 2023 and most recently I taught a course on trans issues.
In April and May 2025, I spoke to queer, non-binary and trans* students and some of the GSA teacher-advisors in the Waterloo Catholic District School Board (WCDSB) about the history, science and politics around trans and queer youth and families.
I am researching these areas as part of a pressing community commitment to helping stem the rising tide of hate and harassment that so many of marginalised communities are facing in Waterloo Region specifically and across Canada generally.
Despite the anti-trans actions carried out by regressive conservative governments and politicians, in Canada, the USA and the UK, I find humour to be one of the most effective tools for being able to express joy and laughter as elements of resilience and resistance.
Thus, one of my newest areas of community engagement has been to engage in stand-up comedy where I weave together accounts of the anti-trans rhetoric, actions and ideology of politicians, with anecdotes about my family and my life, with my own observations on trans women's lives and everyday experiences.
Background:
Before becoming an academic, I worked at a number of different blue- and white-collar jobs and began travelling and/or living in a number of different places, from 1979 onwards, including England, Netherlands, Germany, Greece, (former) Yugoslavia, Mexico and Spain.
By my late 20s, I had started working as a lecturer in FE (Further Education) and AE (Adult Education) in greater London, England, which was followed by a short three-year stint in the media industries. This included working as a radio editor and an assistant manager of TV post-production in the private sector.
After I started studying part-time for my PhD at Goldsmiths, I began teaching full-time in higher education in greater London. Since 1993, I have taught across six different universities in England and Ontario, Canada.
I have worked in the Department of Communication Studies since it was formed on July 1st, 2001, teaching a range of courses that have overlapped with my outside advocacy work with anti-poverty and minimum-wage campaigns as well as contract faculty campaigns.
I draw upon these experiences to integrate practical and analytical approaches in studying how news media work in covering economic and social justice movements and issues, and how these social movements communicate their ideas.
It is through my advocacy work with economic justice organisations that I have developed aspects of different courses, including my graduate level course on "The Rhetoric of Economics", and my undergraduate seminar on the ways in which the 2008 financial catastrophe was communicated via language, metaphor, story in film, book, news and advertisements: "Media, Markets, Myths". Other courses have included a focus on public communication, public advocacy campaigns, alternative media, moral panics and free speech, culture wars, and the global financial crisis in popular communication. Most recently, I have taught a course on transgender issues, history, representation and politics.
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My research at present is on the 'Culture Wars': this is a focus on the authoritarian right-wing machinery that organizes and fosters ideological attacks on knowledge, science and universities, and the connections with powerful individuals and institutions which amplify and popularize such attacks, particularly in the ways that this is used to silence those who are critical of the dominant power structures in contemporary society. In particular, I am interested in their use of argumentative strategies, rhetorical devices and tropes, and keyword and language choices.
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2025 “W(h)ither the Party Paper? Preparing the War of Position to Build the Scaffolding for Twenty-First-Century Socialist Media”. Rethinking Marxism 37 (1): 37–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/08935696.2024.2435771
(This is my response to five interlocutors in a special issue with a roundtable on my book, “Wars of Position? Marxism Today, Cultural Politics and the Remaking of the Left Press, 1979-90”.)
- (30 January 2023) Wars of Position? Marxism Today, Cultural Politics and the Remaking of the Left Press, 1979-90. Chicago: Haymarket Publishing.
- (16 December 2021) Wars of Position? Marxism Today, Cultural Politics and the Remaking of the Left Press, 1979-90.Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.
- (2021) "'Persuasion, Precarity and the Professoriate': Communication Challenges on Contract Faculty Campaigns", Democratic Communiqué, 30 (1) (August): Article 2.
- (2017) “Stuart Hall’s Legacy: Thatcherism, Cultural Studies and ‘the Battle for Socialist Ideas’ during the 1980s”, Socialist Studies, 12 (1) (March) (online).
- (2017) “‘Engaging Class Struggles’: Preparing Students for the ‘Real World’ by Teaching ‘Activist’ Cultural Production in the Classroom”, Canadian Journal of Communication, 42 (1) (Spring 2017): 33-48. Special issue on ‘Activism and Communication Scholarship in Canada’. (Print, online.)
- (2015) "Vanguard Media: The Promise of Strategic Communication?" in Chris Atton (ed) The Routledge Companion to Alternative and Community Media.
- (2014) “‘Militant Entertainment’? ‘Crisis music’ and political ephemera in the emergent ‘structure of feeling’, 1976-83,” Fight Back: Punk, Politics and Resistance, edited by The Subcultures Network, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 268-286.