Niall Gallen

Thesis title:

Freaks for Freneticism: Acceleration & Accelerationism from the Mid-century to Now

Research Area

Languages and Literature

Publications

Co-editor of Pandemic Perspectives: Reflections on the Post-Covid World (UK: Ubiquity Proceedings, 2022)

Co-editor of 'Futurity in Crisis', Alluvium (9.3) (04/06/21)

Blog Post: 'Genre Speciation and Science Fiction: Realer than Realism?', Midlands Network of Popular Culture, (29/10/2020)

Book Review: 'Solidarity Without Similarity', Matt Colquhoun, Egress: On Mourning, Melancholy and Mark Fisher, Review 31, (10/05/20)

Conferences

''No Angst Only Choice' -- Rectifying George Orwell in Jake Chapman's 2+2=5' at Critical Orwell an Online Conference - University of Birmingham (12/04/22)

'Douglas Coupland's Postcapitalist Desire' at Douglas Coupland and the Art of the Extreme Present online conference - Lancaster, Lee, and Northumbria Universities (24/04/21)

Pandemic Perspectives 2021: Reflections on a Post-Covid World, Co-organiser and Space and (Dis)placement panel chair (20/04/2021)

'Labyrinthine Complexity: Navigating the MA Dissertation' and 'Accelerating Towards Banality' at ‘Researching Digital Cultures: Past, Present and Future’ – CfDC Research Showcase University of Birmingham, 06-07/11/19

Presented on researching Paolozzi at 'Challenges of the Archive’ – CLEMT Roundtable, University of Birmingham, 23/10/19.

Public Engagement & Impact

'CCRU After Life: Accelerationism, What is it, and Why is it Still Important?' at Between Sound and Concept: Listening with the Ccru, Public Symposium for the Coventry Biennial (08/12/21)

Postcapitalist Desire - Online Seminar Series and Guest Lecture at the University of Birmingham (November-April 2021)

Coventry Biennial Hyper-Texts Contributor for the Ccru (05/01/21)

K-Punk Quarantined - Online Public Seminar Series and Guest Lecture at the University of Birmingham (26/05/20-23/06/20)

'Accelerationism and Eduardo Paolozzi', Public Exhibition 'Tour & Talk', University of Birmingham, (25/03/19)

Other Research Interests

Modern and Contemporary Literature, Sociological Criticisms of Technology and its Impacts, Digital Cultures, Modernism, Theory-Fiction, Literature and Science, Literature and Art, Continental Philosophy, Contemporary Literary Theory, Video Game Studies, and Criticism.

Memberships

British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies (BACLS)

British Science Fiction Association (BSFA)

Placement: Paolozzi @ 40

On this funded placement project with Redditch Borough Council and Arts in Redditch, I am responsible for producing, curating, and conducting a survey about the Eduardo Paolozzi mosaics in the Kingfisher Shopping Centre, Redditch. The survey will ask what residents know about the mosaics, and what they make of them, and will be used to support an upcoming celebration of 40 years since the installation of the mosaics. This project also sees me bring my expertise on Paolozzi to bear, involving residents in public engagement activities that will support the survey, while asking residents more in-depth questions about their personal relationships to the works as public art, and whether they feel the works representative of them, their ambitions, and the town.

Other Projects/Groups

Co-founder of the Contemporary Theoretical Network (Ctrl Network).

Previously a Writer and Committee Member for Forthcoming Research Network Research/Curate.

Previously a Core Member of the Pandemic Perspectives discussion group.

Previously a Supporting Administrator for the Critical Posthumanism Seminar Series and Research Network.