Faculty of Performance, Visual Arts and Communications

Institute of Communications Studies

Dr Paul Taylor

Senior Lecturer, Communications Theory

0113 343 5818

Clothworkers' Building North, 2.19

Office hours: Sem 2 Mondays 1-2pm, Thursday 12-1pm

MA (Edinb) PhD (Edinb)

Research Interests

My research interests focus upon critical theories of mass media culture – in particular, the works of Theodor Adorno, Siegfried Kracauer, and Jean Baudrillard; psychoanalytically-influenced media/film theory – including Friederich Kittler and Slavoj Zizek; and philosophically-informed perspectives upon the media – particularly the work of Martin Heidegger.

Teaching

Undergraduate Modules:

Media Philosophy: Technological Dasein (3rd Year Option)

Cinematic Themes (2nd Year Core Module)

Film Theory and Aesthetics (3rd Year Option)

MA Teaching:

Radical Journalism (with Dr Chris Paterson)

Publications

Books

  • Taylor PA (2011) Žižek and the Media. Polity.

    The book: Describes the radical nature of Zizek's media politics; Uses Zizekian insights to expose the profound intellectual limitations of conventional ...

  • Taylor PA; Harris JL (2008) Critical theories of mass media. Open Univ Pr.

    "This is a welcome critical corrective to complacent mainstream accounts of the media's cultural impact".

  • Taylor PA; Harris JLL (2007) Critical Theories of Mass Media: Then and Now. Open University Press - McGraw-Hill. [Submitted]

    Author URL [www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk]

    A critical account of past and present theories of the media drawing upon a range of theorists.

  • Taylor PA; Harris J (2005) Digital Matters: Theory and culture of the matrix. Routledge.

  • Jordan T; Taylor PA (2004) Hacktivism and Cyberwars: Rebels with a Cause?. Routledge.

  • Taylor PA (1999) Hackers. Routledge.

    Freedom fighers or anarchists? InHackers, Paul A. Taylor looks at these characters and the perennial battle between computer hackers and the security industry.

  • Taylor PA; Gunkel DJ Heidegger and the Media. Media Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press. [In preparation]

    A co-authored monograph (with Prof David Gunkel of Northern Illinois University) that constitutes part of Polity Press's "Media Theory" publication series.

  • Taylor PA Zizek Goes to Hollywood. [In preparation]

Journal Articles

  • Taylor PA (2009) “'Media Studies 2.0 - The Debate'”, Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture. 1.1

  • Taylor PA (2009) “'Critical Theory 2.0 and Im/materiality: The Bug in the Machinic Flows'.”, Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture. 1.1

  • Taylor PA (2009) “'Exploitation of the Self in Community-based Software Production - Workers' Freedoms or Firm Foundations?',”, Capital and Class. 97: 99-120.

  • Taylor PA (2008) “'Baudrillard's Gallic Shrug - Reality Fundamentalism and the Heineken Effect'”, French Cultural Studies. 19.3: 273-285.

  • Taylor PA (2007) “The Death of a Symbol in King Herod's Creche”, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies. 5.1 [Accepted]

    Author URL [www.ubishops.ca]

    An account of Baudrillard's contibution to a symbolic understanding of semiotic communications orders.

  • Taylor PA (2006) “Pattern Recognition in Fast Capitalism: Calling Literary Time on the Theorists of Flux”, Fast Capitalism. 2.1

    Author URL [www.uta.edu]

    A study of the relationship between contemporary theories of the information society and fictional depictions of the informational zeitgeist.

  • Taylor PA; Harris JLL (2005) “Baudrillard Bytes”, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies. 2.2: 1-22.

    Author URL [www.ubishops.ca]

    An account of the Baudrillard's contribution to the study of digital technology.

  • Taylor PA; Harris JLL (2005) “Phantom Objectivity”, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies. 2.2: 1-22.

    Author URL [www.ubishops.ca]

    An examination of Baudrillard's contribution to Lukacs's concept of reification in the light of the contemporary mediascape.

  • Taylor PA (2004) “International Journal of Baudrillard Studies”, British Journal of Politics & International Relations.

  • Taylor PA (2003) “Waiting for the Barbarians & and the naked Emperor's Chicken”, Higher Education Review. 35.2: 5-23.

  • Taylor PA (2003) “Humboldt's Rift: the commercialisation of European Higher Education”, European Political Science. 3.1: 75-84.

  • Taylor PA (2001) “Informational Intimacy & Futuristic Flu: Love & Confusion in the Matrix”, Information, Communication and Society. 4.1: 74-94.

  • Taylor PA 'Literature's Power and Fury in the Virtual Age'.

  • Taylor PA 'From Mit-Sein to Bit-Sein; informational pattern recognition and a chronicle of a life foretold'.

  • Taylor PA 'The Heineken Effect - Bauman, Baudrillard, and Zizek as thinkers of liquidity'. [In preparation]

Chapters

  • Taylor PA (2007) “Hacktivism”, The International Encyclopedia of Communication, Donsbach W (eds.). Blackwell Publishing Ltd. [Accepted]

    Author URL [www.communicationencyclopedia.com]

    2,000 word entry in the International Encyclopedia of Communications

  • Taylor PA (2006) “'Die Politik der Fiktion - oder warum Literatur mehr ist als das was ich im Zug auf dem Weg zur Arbeit lese'.”, Politik der Cultural Studies, Harrasser K; Riedmann S; Scott A (eds.). Hamburg: Argument Verlag.

    The role of literary fiction within cultural studies

  • Taylor PA (2005) “'The pornographic barbarism of the self-reflecting sign"”, Media and Political Violence, Nossek H; Sreberny A; Sonwalkar P (eds.). Hampton Press.

    'The pornographic barbarism of the self-reflecting sign" in Media and Political Violence - by Hillel Nossek, Annabelle Sreberny and Prasun Sonwalkar [eds.] Hampton Press, 349 - 366.

  • Taylor PA (2005) “Hacktivism”, The Handbook of Information Security., Bidgoli H (eds.). john wiley & sons.

    Detailed entry upon the theme of Hacktivism

  • Taylor PA (2004) “Keyboard Protest: Hacktivist Spiders on the Web”, Anti-Capitalist Britain, Carter J; Morland D (eds.). New Clarion Press.

  • Taylor PA (2004) “Remote from Reality: Living in the New Plato's Cave”, Remote: Creativity, Technology and Remoteness, Posey E (eds.). Bloc Press.

  • Taylor PA (2003) “Hacktivists: Resistance is Fertile?”, The Blackwell Companion to Criminology, Sumner C (eds.). Blackwell Publishers.

  • Taylor PA (2003) “Misogynists or Maestros? Gender and the social construction of hacking”, Dot.Cons, Jewkes Y (eds.). Willan Publishers.

  • Taylor PA (2003) “TrickE-business: Malcontents in the Matrix”, The Economic & Social Impacts of E-Commerce, Lubbe S (eds.). Idea Group Publishers.

  • Taylor PA (2001) “The Social Construction of Hackers as Deviants”, Readings in Deviant Behavior, Thio A; Calhoun TC (eds.). Allyn & Bacon.

  • Taylor PA (2001) “Hacktivism: in search of lost ethics?”, Crime and the Internet, Wall D (eds.). Routledge.

Internet Publications

  • Taylor PA (2007) Why Zizek? Why Now?. Hosted by Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds.

    Author URL [www.ubishops.ca]

    The Editorial Introduction to the inaugral issue of The International Journal of Zizek Studies

External Appointments

I am the General Editor of the International Journal of Zizek Studies and Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies , Fast Capitalism and the International Journal of Badiou Studies.

 

I am External Examiner for the MA in Mass Communications at the University of Leicester and the External Examiner for the Undergraduate Communications Programme of Keele University.

PhD & Postdoctoral Supervision

I currently supervise:

Vanon Aurajchatchairat

Paul Aitken
Imanol Galfarsoro
John MacWillie
Heidi Herzogenrath-Amelung
Stuart Shaw

Past Supervisions

Jesse Hearns-Branaman

Azeez Lukuman

Ting Wang

Jan Ll. Harris

David Kreps

 


 

Professional Practice

I have appeared regularly on various BBC Radio and World Service programmes as a commentator on a range of media and cultural issues. See for example: Woman’s Hour.

Links

ONLINE VIDEOS relating to my research include:

Screening Thought, The Media’s Philosophical Problem – with Slavoj Zizek, London May 2011.

Zizek’s Violence – a lecture given as part of Bradley Evans’s Histories of Violence project.

© Copyright Leeds 2012