I have a wide variety of interests, both on a professional and personal level – in fact the two are pretty much intertwined. I pursue these interests both through academic research projects and writing and through journalism and blogging. In fact I try not to distinguish too closely my academic and non-academic work as both are fundamentally attempts to communicate, to contribute to debate and to learn from others.
The main topics that I have worked on are:
- The contemporary Jewish world, including:
- Jewish identities.
- Jewish communal politics in Britain.
- Jewish youth.
- Jewish popular music and culture.
My book Turbulent Times: The British Jewish Community Today (co-written’ with Ben Gidley) will be published by Continuum in summer 2010.
- Israel, Zionism and the Middle East peace process. I am particularly concerned with the ways in which the Israel-Palestine conflict ’spills over’ into the rest of the world, especially the ways it dominates diaspora Jewish life.
- The problems and potentials of ‘dialogue’ as a way of improving inter and intra-communal relations. I have worked on inter faith dialogue projects but I am particularly interested in the neglected field of intra communal dialogue.As convenor of New Jewish Thought I am working to improve British Jews ability to talk to each other about Israel.
- Metal music and culture. My PhD thesis on the sociology of the global Extreme Metal music scene was based on fieldwork carried out in the UK, Sweden and Israel. My book Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge was published by Berg in 2006. From 1997 to 2006 I wrote reviews and interviews for the metal magazine Terrorizer. I am currently co-editing a collection on metal and controversy.
- Popular music, youth and popular culture in general.
- Religion and popular music.
- Political culture and left politics in particular
- The politics of ‘denial’.
- Transgression, extremism and radicalism.