This talk is part of the Media and Politics Research Seminar series which brings together scholars from a range of disciplines to share their research at the intersection of politics and media. The theme for this semester is identity, collectivity and exclusion, with papers covering digital exclusion in social housing, individual and collective identity in fascist music, wayfinding and shared spatial memory in the case of James Bulger, and the future of collectivist thought pulled between spectacle and popularity in a celebrity culture. All are welcome and refreshments will be provided. For more events in the series please visit www.liv.ac.uk/communication-and-media/events

Speaker: Sam Burgum, University of Warwick

Following a spate of appearances on political television programmes that subsequently went viral, actor-comedian Russell Brand has seemingly become the new popular face of radical left-wing politics. However, his professing of these ideas has been met with a surge of commentary, either supporting his accessible popular format or criticising his position as a celebrity in making such politics a trivial spectacle. This paper seeks to meet with both arguments, suggesting that it is a fair criticism of Brand to point to his outspokenness as problematic, but that this critical position also belies a certain cynical disposition against any form of popularity on the part of the left. By comparing Russell Brand with another leftist ‘superstar’ – Slavoj Zizek – it is argued that that the left needs to get over its cynicism and tread the fine line between popularity and spectacle in order to bring about change.

Speaker Biography

Sam is a doctoral researcher in Sociology at the University of Warwick. His thesis focuses on the Occupy movement and questions of post-politics, asking whether post-crash movements can be considered instances of ‘politics proper’. You can read some of Sam’s work on his blog (esjaybe.wordpress.com) or follow him on Twitter (@sjburgum).