Professor James Martin
Staff details
James' research focuses on political theories, ideologies and philosophies, particularly in modern Europe. To explore these, he draws on approaches such as psychoanalysis, (post)phenomenology, and rhetorical theory. He has published widely on radical political ideas and thinkers in Italy and France, and on methods of rhetorical analysis. In 2010-15 he was co-editor of the journal, Contemporary Political Theory.
Academic qualifications
- PhD on the political thought of Antonio Gramsci. University of Bristol 1994
- MA in Political Thought. University of Kent 1989
- BA (Hons), Politics and Sociology. University of East Anglia 1988
Research interests
In 2013-15 James was a Leverhulme Research Fellow working on a project on affects and political speech. That project informed his book, Psychopolitics of Speech (2019), which employed the work of psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, to think about rhetoric as a means to incite and manage desire. He has recently written a short book on the different uses of 'Hegemony' in political thought. Currently, he is working on topics such as public eulogies, and the relation between politics and theology. Between 2010 and 2020, James convened the Rhetoric, Discourse and Politics Specialist Group of the UK Political Studies Association.
