Current activities and positions held
Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society at Birkbeck College.
Convenor of New Jewish Thought an organisation working to improve dialogue and raise neglected issues within the Anglo-Jewish community.
Associate Lecturer at the Open University on the course ‘Research Methods Dissertation in the Social Sciences’.
Regular freelance contributor for a number of publications including: The Guardian Comment Is Free, Open Democracy, New Humanist, Times Higher Education, Jewish Chronicle, The Jerusalem Post, The Jewish Quarterly, Zeek. Member of the editorial board for the Jewish Quarterly.
Research Consultant to various UK Jewish organisations. Clients have included Alif-Aleph UK, UJIA and the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Member of the steering group for the National ME Observatory.
Previous positions
2008- 9: Research Associate at the Centre for Urban and Community Research, Goldsmiths College, working on project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council ‘Contemporary Anglo-Jewry and Leadership: Coping with Multiculturalism’ (with Ben Gidley).
2007-8 : Research Associate at the Centre for Urban and Community Research, Goldsmiths College, working on two projects funded by the Rothschild Foundation: ‘A Mapping Study of Efforts to Combat Antisemitism, Racism and Xenophobia at the Local, Communal and Grassroots Levels in Europe’ (with Roger Hewitt) and ‘From Security to Insecurity?: Jewish Communal Leadership in Changing Times’ (with Ben Gidley).
2005 : Postdoctoral Fellow at the Advanced Cultural Studies Institute of Sweden, Campus Norrköping of Linköping University.
1997-2005: Music critic for Terrorizer magazine.
2003 : Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Cultural History, Turku University, Finland. I taught a course entitled ‘Youth, Transgression and Popular Music’ during autumn term 2003-4.
2002 : Visiting Fellow at the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilization, Monash University, Melbourne. Whilst at the centre I was commissioned to conduct two pieces of research: 1) am interview-based study of Australia Jewish youth movements and their relationship to Israel during the current crisis. 2) an interview-based study of the organizers of summer camps run by Australian Jewish days schools.
2001-2 : ‘Jerusalem Fellow’ at the Mandel School for Advanced Educational Leadership in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Fellows programme is a prestigious, international, cross-communal career development programme for Jewish educators from Diaspora communities.
1998-9 : Visiting Tutor in the Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths College. I led a first year seminar group on the course ‘Researching Society and Culture’.
1996 : Visiting Tutor in the Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths College. I led two third year seminar groups on the course ‘Music and the Masses’.
1995-8 : Research Officer for Jewish Continuity / UJIA.
1994-5 : Research Assistant for SCPR (Social and Community Planning Research now called National Centre for Social Research).
1989-93 : Youth leader for Unity, a group that integrated young people with special needs and disabilities into play schemes.
Other previous activities and positions:
2009: External Examiner of the PhD thesis of Meir Persoff, Middlesex University
2008: External Examiner of the PhD thesis of Rachel Goldstein, Greenwich University.
2007 : External Examiner of Honours dissertation, Department of Communications, Monash University Malaysia
2004-7 : Editorial Board Member for the journal Sociological Research Online
2004 : External Examiner for the PhD thesis of Thomas Harrison, Salford University.
1999-01 : Treasurer/Membership Secretary of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM).
1999 : Editor, Publisher and Organiser of ‘New Voices in Jewish Thought’ project: This involved editing, publishing, publicising and circulating the collection ‘New Voices in Jewish Thought: Volume Two’ and organising the monthly ‘New Voices’ seminar group for Jewish postgraduate students.
1997-99 : Secretary of the UK branch of IASPM. Duties included organising the 1998 IASPM UK conference, collecting subscriptions and maintaining membership records.
In addition to the above I am a regular reviewer for a number of scholarly journals including Sociology, Sociological Research Online, Journal of Contemporary Religion, European Journal of Cultural Studies and Popular Music History.
1991-94 : Robinson College, Cambridge
BA in Social and Political Sciences (2:1)
1995-01 : Goldsmiths College, London:
1996 : MA in Sociology with special reference to qualitative research (Distinction)
Dissertation Title: ‘Constructing Death: A Discourse Analysis of the Interview Talk of Four Death Metal Fans’
1999 : MPhil in Sociology (p/t)
2001 : PhD in Sociology (f/t)
Thesis title: ‘Transgression and Mundanity: The Global Extreme Metal Music Scene.’ My thesis was based on interviews carried out with ‘Extreme Metal’ musicians and fans in Israel, Sweden and the UK.