Professor Jason Dittmer
Prof. Jason Dittmer 
Department of Geography
University College London
North-West Wing, Room 102
London WC1E 6BT
Email: j.dittmer@ucl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7679 0412
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7679 0565
Feedback and academic support hours
- 10am-11am on Mondays
- 10am-12pm on Wednesdays
Editorial Board Member: Political Geography; The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship
I am the author of Diplomatic Material: Affect, Assemblage, and Foreign Policy (Duke University Press, 2017), Captain America and the Nationalist Superhero: Metaphors, Narratives, and Geopolitics (Temple University Press, 2013) and Popular Culture, Geopolitics, and Identity (Rowman and Littlefield, 1st ed. 2010; 2nd ed. 2019). I am also the editor (or co-editor) of Geopolitics: An Introductory Reader (Routledge, 2014), the Ashgate Research Companion to Media Geography (Ashgate, 2014), Comic Book Geographies (Franz Steiner, 2014), and Mapping the End Times: American Evangelical Geopolitics and Apocalyptic Visions (Ashgate, 2010).
Please contact me if you are interested in conducting PhD study in any of the following topics, or if you have an innovative and different idea in which you think I might be interested:
- Geopolitics, critical and materialist
- Critical approaches to spaces of diplomacy and the military
- Geographies of media, especially comic books
Biography
2015-Present:
Professor of Political Geography, Department of Geography, University College London
2011-2015:
Reader in Human Geography, Department of Geography, University College London
2007-2011:
Lecturer in Human Geography, Department of Geography, University College London
2003-2007:
Assistant Professor of Human Geography, Department of Geology and Geography, Georgia Southern University
2007-2009:
Post-graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, UCL
1999-2003:
PhD in Geography, Florida State University
1998-1999:
MA in International Affairs, Florida State University
1994-1998:
BA in Political Science/International Studies, Jacksonville University
Publications
Click here for Publications.
Research
My current research can be understood as an attempt to weave together geopolitics and assemblage theory. My primary research project at the moment is an investigation of Gibraltar as a material site shaped by geo -political and -logical processes unfolding at a range of temporalities. This project builds on, and brings together, work I have been undertaking over recent years in two realms. First, I maintain a research programme looking at the material connections between different states. My initial work on this has been published in Diplomatic Material: Affect, Assemblage, and Foreign Policy (Duke University Press, 2017). I am now trying to push this forward both by investigating the interoperability of national militaries and -- with my colleague Fiona McConnell -- by studying the diplomatic relations of the British Overseas Territories. Second, with my colleague Emma Waterton, I focus on the materiality of popular geopolitics through an examination of embodied encounters with heritage sites associated with militarism and nuclear testing.
Impact
I am currently collaborating with parts of HM Government of Gibraltar on issues of heritage and conservation/urban planning. Some aspects of my research may be of wider interest to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and also the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Gibraltar. In the past I have written a policy report for the FCO, which can be found referenced under 'Publications'.
Teaching
Undergraduate teaching:
- Overseas Field Course: Gibraltar
Graduate teaching:
- Geo-Politics
PhD Students
Current:
Dina Alawadi
Silvia Binenti
Will Stewart
Past graduates:
Dr Amil Mohanan
Dr Bharath Ganesh
Dr Sam Page
Dr Joe Thorogood
Dr Pooya Ghoddousi