Research
My current research projects include:
Monograph: Imagining Alternative Histories of Britain and Norther Ireland, British Fictions and Fictional Britains. Forthcoming: Routledge 2026.
Historical television dramas offer alternative ways of knowing and imagining the past and, in so doing, suggest the possibility of multiple or polysemic histories with their fictive narratives becoming enmeshed in and in some cases inextricable from popular conceptions of the past. This book specifically focuses on television dramas that tell stories about Britain and Northern Ireland that in some way invite their audiences to adopt a perspective on their histories that differs from the mainstream norm. In so doing, these dramas produce what this book calls ‘discomposure’. Thomson (2006) discusses the process of ‘composure’ by which national histories and myths about the past are incorporated by individuals into their own, personal histories (300). Historical drama is particularly important to this process as it offers accessible, entertaining versions of historical events and national pasts. However, it is often from their depiction of moments of “discomposure,” moments that in some way challenge, subvert or invite speculation about dominant narratives of past people and events, that these historical dramas generate entertainment and seek to appeal to audiences. These alternative perspectives and narratives in turn discompose notions of a single, delineated past that can form the basis for the construction of national identities, myths and cultural memories.
The Critical Role Effect: Understanding the Cultural Evolution of Dungeons & Dragons in a Post-Convergence Media Landscape.
Using a combination of ethnography and industrial analysis this project seeks a holistic understanding of the evolution of Critical Role, its impact on perceptions and experiences of playing D&D and what this can tell us about the contemporary (post)converged media landscape. Identifying new reciprocal circuits of meaning, production, consumption and practice that have both facilitated and been created by this expansion it will demonstrate the need for new understandings of media convergence and Dungeons & Dragons as a cultural practice.