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Professor Philip Spencer

Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Kingston University

Professor Philip Spencer Areas of expertise

Find out more about Professor Philip Spencer

Overview

Professor Philip Spencer is Director of the Helen Bamber Centre for the Study of Rights, Conflict and Mass Violence, at Kingston University. The centre, which he founded in 2004, provides a focus for research and teaching in these areas. It is named in honour of the veteran rights campaigner Helen Bamber, who has devoted her life to the victims of conflicts across the world.
Professor Spencer's own research interests include the Holocaust; comparative genocide; nationalism; and anti-Semitism. He is also director of the university's European Research Department, where the central focus is on European political and cultural identity, with an overall concern for the changing forms, boundaries and future of Europe in the modern world.
A seasoned public speaker in his field, most recently (March 2011) he spoke at the European Parliament at a conference entitled"Remembering the Halabja genocide and the use of chemical weapons against Kurds in Iraq".

 

Qualifications

Year gained Subject
1985 Postgraduate Certificate of Education, Institute of Education, London University
1974 BPhil in Politics, Christ Church, Oxford University
1971 BA in Modern History, Christ Church, Oxford University

Career Highlights

Year Position held
2001 - Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Kingston University
1995 - 2001 Director of the Human Sciences Undergraduate Modular Scheme, Kingston University
1993-1995 Head of Combined Studies, Kingston University
1992 - 1993 Principal Lecturer and Modularisation Project Leader, Faculty of Human Sciences, Kingston University
1988 - 1992 Senior Lecturer in Politics, Kingston University

Research

Spencer, Philip (2007) Un événement sans précédent qui crée un précédent - l'Holocauste et l'histoire du génocide. (English title - An unprecedented event as a precedent - the Holocaust and the history of genocide.) Bulletin Trimestriel de la Fondation Auschwitz (96), pp. 37-73. ISSN (print) 0772-652X

Spencer, Philip (2006) From Rosa Luxemburg to Hannah Arendt: socialism, barbarism and the extermination camps.3 The European Legacy, 11(5), pp. 527-540. ISSN (print) 1084-8770

Spencer, Philip (2004) The Shoah and Marxism: behind and beyond silence.4 In: Lentin, Ronit, (ed.) Re-presenting the Shoah for the twenty-first century. New York, USA; Oxford, UK : Berghahn Books. pp. 155-178. ISBN 1-57181-802-2

Spencer, Philip and Wollman, Howard (2002) Nationalism: a critical introduction.5 London, UK : Sage Publications. 238p. ISBN 9780761947202

Spencer, Philip (2001) Civic nationalism, civic nations and the problem of migration.6 In: Ghatak, Subrata and Showstack Sassoon, Anne, (eds.) Migration and mobility: the European context. Basingstoke, UK : Palgrave. pp. 83-108. ISBN 0333920368

Spencer, Philip (2000) The politics of civil society.7 In: Taljnaita-, M. , Blom, Raimo and Melin, Harri, (eds.) Streaming Towards Social Stability. University of Vilnius, Lithuania : Lithuanian Institute of Philosophy and Sociology. pp. 216-237. ISBN 9789986523789

Spencer, Philip and Wollman, Howard (1999) Blood and sacrifice: politics versus culture in the construction of nationalism.8 In: Brehony, Kevin Joseph and Rassool, Naz, (eds.) Nationalisms old and new. Basingstoke, U.K. : Macmillan Press. pp. 87-124. (Explorations in sociology, no. 51) ISBN 9780333717714

Spencer, Philip and Wollman, Howard (1998) Good and bad nationalisms: a critique of dualism.9 Journal of Political Ideologies, 3(3), pp. 255-274. ISSN (print) 1356-9317

Spencer, Philip J and Wollman, Howard (1997) Nationalism and democracy in the transition from communism in Eastern Europe.10 Contemporary Politics, 3(2), pp. 171-188. ISSN (print) 1356-9775

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