Join us for this special lecture from Professor John Hannigan, who will explore the geopolitics of our oceans. Featuring contributions from Dr Aurelie Charles and Dr Philippe Blondel.

Speaker biographies

John Hannigan is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto Scarborough. His research focuses on environmental issues, the geopolitics of oceans, and urban political economy. He is the author of Environmental Sociology (Routledge,1995, 2006, 2014); translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Portuguese; Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern City (Routledge, 1998); Disasters Without Borders: The International Politics of Natural Disasters (Polity Press, 2012); The Geopolitics of Deep Oceans (Polity Press 2015); The SAGE Handbook of New Urban Studies (2017), co-edited with Greg Richard; and Rise of the Spectacular: America in the 1950s (Routledge, 2021). In his current research project, “Flammable ice”: Environmental Risk at the Frontier of Unconventional Energy Production", he explores the scientific construction of risk linked to offshore methane hydrate extraction.

Aurelie Charles is a Senior Lecturer in Global Sustainability in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath, with particular expertise on group behaviour in socio-ecological interactions. Her current research projects evolve around sustainable earnings, group inequality mapping, and cross-disciplinary approaches to climate justice.

Philippe Blondel is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physics and Co-founder and Deputy Director of the Centre for Space, Atmospheric and Oceanic Science (CSAOS) at the University of Bath. His research interests include marine acoustics; seabed and habitat mapping; marine renewable energies; and noise pollution.

This event will be chaired by Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Institute for Policy Research (IPR), Professor Nick Pearce.

This event is part of 'Our oceans: A deep dive' - a public event series seeking to explore the world’s oceans and what climate change, maritime trade and strategic conflict mean for their future.