Network Partners
Professor Mary Corcoran, National University of Ireland, Maynooth
Professor Corcoran is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, where she is also a member of the Urban / Suburban Studies Research Cluster. The Cluster engages with a range of disciplines including art, planning, architecture and photography, its goals being to integrate an empirical engagement with everyday life in urban, rural and suburban contexts with contemporary theoretical debates in the humanities and social sciences. Professor Corcoran’s own research interests lie primarily in the fields of urban sociology, public cultures and the sociology of migration. She is a member of: the Sociological Association of Ireland (SAI); American Sociological Association (ASA) and American Conference for Irish Studies (ACIS). Her recent publications include: Suburban Affiliations (With Jane Gray and Michel Peillon) (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, and Dublin: University College Dublin, 2010) and “Sustaining Communities: Setting the Agenda” (with Cian O Callaghan and Wendy Fuller), a special edition of GeoJournal: International Journal of Geography, Vol. 71, No. 2010.
Email: mary.corcoran@nuim.ie
Urban/Suburban Research Cluster website: http://sociology.nuim.ie/research/research-clusters/urban/suburban-studies
NUI Maynooth Department of Sociology website: http://sociology.nuim.ie
Dr Martin Dines, Kingston University, UK
Dr Dines is Lecturer in English Literature in the School of Humanities at Kingston University and member of the Kingston University Centre for Suburban Studies (the first of its kind in the UK). The Centre has an accomplished record of interdisciplinary research (drawing on geography, history, planning and design, gender and cultural studies), working with scholars and practitioners in urban and suburban studies across the UK and beyond. Dr Dines lectures in suburban studies and brings expertise in gender, sexuality and race in the suburbs. He is the author of Gay Surburban Narratives in American and British Culture: Homecoming Queens (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
Email: m.dines@kingston.ac.uk
Centre for Suburban Studies website: http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/research/suburban-studies
School website: http://fass.kingston.ac.uk
Dr Jo Gill, University of Exeter, UK
Dr Gill is Director of Education and Senior Lecturer in Twentieth-century Literature in the School of Humanities at Exeter University. She is the Principal Investigator on the ‘Cultures of the Suburbs Interdisciplinary Research Network’. Her research focuses on confessional and life-writing, mid-twentieth century American poetry, and the literature and culture of the American suburbs. She is the author of Anne Sexton’s Confessional Poetics (UP Florida 2007), Women’s Poetry (Edinburgh UP 2007) and The Cambridge Introduction to Sylvia Plath (Cambridge UP 2008). She is currently completing a new book on the poetics of the American suburbs.
Email: j.r.gill@exeter.ac.uk
College website: http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk
Dr Choodamani Nandagopal, Jain University, Bangalore, India
Dr Nandagopal is Professor of History and Cultural Studies, Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Jain University, Bangalore India. She is the recipient of four International prestigious Fellowships, namely, UK Visiting Nehru Fellow (1992) at Victoria & Albert Museum London, UNESCO Hirayama Fellow (1995) for Art History, UNSW Visiting Research Fellow (2009), and Exeter International Academic Fellow (2012), and supervises PhD students in Cultural Studies. Her research focuses on the socio-cultural approaches of art, society, culture and contemporary studies, and she has published eighteen books and fifty papers. Dr Nandagopal is widely travelled with academic assignments, on national and international committees and boards. At present she is heading a research team at Jain University on ‘The Changing Scenario of Bangalore City – Urban and Suburban’ with a focus on the factors of rapid urban development and the changing nature of the suburban culture.
University website: http://www.jainuniversity.ac.in
Dr Christopher Niedt, Hofstra University, New York
Christopher Niedt is currently an Academic Director of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, where he is also Assistant Professor of Applied Social Research in the Department of Sociology. His research is broadly concerned with the effects of metropolitan growth and decline on race and class inequality in the United States. He has studied the political history of inner-ring suburbs, their recent turn towards gentrification, and the viability of regional approaches that aspire to more equitable and inclusive forms of prosperity. His most recent research projects include work on the growing racial, ethnic, and political diversity in the suburbs, and he is currently editing a volume on suburban social movements.
Email: Christopher.Niedt@hofstra.edu
National Centre for Suburban Studies website: http://www.hofstra.edu/ncss
Professor Sarah Nuttall, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
Professor Sarah Nuttall is Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Witwatersrand, and Senior Researcher at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER). This acclaimed research institute conducts research into the changing conditions of life in the new South Africa with a particular emphasis on suburban and ‘edge city’ developments. The institute focuses on the developing world and provides an invaluable starting point for a re-evaluation of western perceptions of suburban space. Dr Nuttall’s publications include: Beauty and Ugliness: African and Diaspora Aesthetics (editor) (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006) and she is the author of a forthcoming volume of essays on South African literatures.
Email: sarah.nuttall@wits.ac.za
WISER website: http://wiserweb.wits.ac.za
Professor Paul Burton, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia
Paul Burton is Professor of Urban Management and Planning in the School of Environment at Griffith University and Deputy Director of the Urban Research Program, one of the largest groupings of urban scholars in Australia. His research focuses on the theory and practice of urban policy development, urban politics and the changing nature of the planning profession. At present he is researching the use of Citizens’ Juries in local health policy making, the scope for increasing urban agriculture in response to climate change and the development of new approaches to emergency planning for natural hazards. Paul teaches first year planning and architecture students about Australian cities and supervises a wide range of PhD students. He directs the Growth Management Partnership between Griffith University and the Gold Coast City Council which is currently supporting research on the changing cultural identity of the city, the influence of US culture on the urban form of the city and on the city as the epitome of ‘adolescent urbanism’. Paul is currently editing a collection on local adaptation to climate change in South East Queensland. Publications include: ‘Help or Hindrance? The relationship between land use planning and urban agriculture on the Gold Coast’ (with V Pires) in Farmar-Bowers, Millar and Higgins (eds) Food Security in Australia, Springer (in press); ‘To participation and beyond: developing e-democracy in Bristol’ (with S Hilton) in S Baum & A Mahizhnan (eds) Handbook of Research on e-governance and social inclusion: concepts and cases, IGI Global (in press); and ‘Gerotopia: rise of master planned communities for retiring Baby Boomers’ (Burton & Bosman) Queensland Planner, vol 50, no 4, 29-32.
Email: p.burton@griffith.edu.au
Urban Research Program website: http://www.griffith.edu.au/environment-planning-architecture/urban-research-program
