Academic conference papers, seminars and lectures (selected):
‘From Subculture to Scene: Investigating Extreme Metal’ at ‘Talking Metal Meeting’ , organised by Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften, Winterthur, Switzerland, 12 May 2010
‘Locating popular music: scenes and other spaces’ at ‘Theorizing Worlds of Popular Music’, seminar at Goldsmiths College, March 2010
‘Researching intangible spaces: locating the social’ Guest lecture and workshop at the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research postgraduate seminar, December 8 2009.
‘Coming Out’: Realising the Possibilities of Metal’ at ‘Heavy Metal and Gender: An International Conference’, Hochschule für Musik Köln, Germany, October 2009
‘White Masculine Heteronormativity as Liberation: The Paradoxical Possibilities of Metal’ at the Biennial conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, University of Liverpool, July 2009
‘The Colour of Metal: ‘Whiteness’, ‘Blackness’ and the Roots of Heavy Metal in 1960s Rock’. Guest lecture at Texas A&M University, 14 April 2009.
‘How Diverse Should Metal Be? The Case of Jewish Metal’ at ‘Heavy Fundamentalisms: Music, Metal and Politics’, Salzburg, 3-5 November 2008
‘Do We Need Jewish Metal? On Popular Music, Diversity and Inclusion’ at ‘Popular Music Studies: Problems, Disputes, Questions’, University of Glasgow, 12-14 September 2008.
‘From Security to Insecurity: British Jewish Communal Leadership in the Context of Multiculturalism’ at ‘Encounters and Intersections: Religion, Diaspora and Ethnicities Conference’, St Catherine’s College Oxford, 9th-11th July 2008
‘Contemporary Jewish Music in the UK and America: Forces of Unification and Fragmentation’. Presented at ‘Social Connections: Identities, Technologies, Relationships’, British Sociological Association Annual Conference, April 2007
Member of panel on religion and popular music at ‘Theology, Religion and Popular Culture’ conference at Regent’s Park, College, Oxford, April 2006.
‘Transgression and Satanism in Extreme Metal’. Presented at ‘The Lure of the Dark Side: Satan and Western Demonology in Popular Culture’ St Deiniol’s Library, March 2006
‘Jews and Muslims: A Comparative Sociology’. Presented at Royal Holloway College Forum for the Comparative Study of Muslims and Jews, October 2005
‘Understanding Jewish Rap: Pastiche and Syncretism’. Presented at ‘The Local, the Regional and the Global in the Emergence of Popular Music Cultures’, Copenhagen University, October 2005 and at a seminar at Gothenburg University, March 2005.
Respondent on panel ‘Defining Questions, Issues and Methods for the Study of Religion and Popular Music’ at ‘Studying Religion and Popular Music’, University of Birmingham, May 2005
‘Local Music Scenes on a Global Arena: A Comparison of UK, Swedish, Israeli and US Extreme Metal’. Seminar at The Advanced Cultural Institute of Sweden, Norrköping, March 2005
‘The Status of the Musical Text in Religious Popular Music: Some Conceptual Difficulties’. Presented at the April 2003 conference of the BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group, Oxford.
Welcoming address to Day Three ‘ The Invisible Mainstream’ of the biennial conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, Turku University, Finland, July 2001
‘Humour and Extreme Metal’. Presented at BSA Youth Study Group seminar, Northampton, January 2001 and at Turku University, Finland, October 2000
‘An Orphaned Land?: Israel and the Extreme Metal Scene’. Presented at Crossroads in Cultural Studies, Birmingham University, June 2000 and at The Popular Musician: Performance, Poetics, Power, biennial conference of the UK branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, University of Surrey, July 2000.
‘’Darkthrone is absolutely not a political band’: Difference and Reflexivity in the Global Extreme Metal Scene’. Presented at ‘Changing Sounds: New Directions and Configurations in Popular Music’, biennial conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, Sydney University of Technology, 1999 and at Researching Culture, University of North London, 1999
‘Representations and Experiences of the Body in Death Metal Music and the Challenge of Formulating a Critical Response’. Presented at the British Sociological Association conference, Edinburgh University, 1998 and at seminars at the Universities of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Liverpool, 1998.
‘Roots?: The Relationship Between the Global and the Local Within the Extreme Metal Scene’. Presented at Popular Music: Intercultural Interpretations, biennial conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, University of Kanazawa, Japan, 1997 and at Music Studies and Cultural Difference, Open University, 1997.
‘Constructing Death: Discourse Analysis and the Interview Talk of Four Death Metal Fans’. Presented at Vox Pop, annual conference of the Oral History Society, London, 1997.
Other presentations and workshops:
Panellist on ‘Jews, Britain and the Future’ at 2020 Vision, The London Jewish Cultural Centre, 16 August 2010
‘My dream came true and I’m still not satisfied: the journey of a metal jew’. Presented at Pecha Kucha London and Ignite London, March 2010. View it here.
Panelist at the ‘Left Right Night’, Jewish Community Centre for London, 3 December 2009.
‘Journey into the Known’. Lecture and workshop at the exhibition: ‘Beneath the Remains – Translations of Estrangement and the Politics of Survival’ at arttransponder, Berlin, 9 November 2009. A version of the lecture can be viewed here
Panellist on ‘Solidarity from afar’ session at ‘Psycho-Political Resistance in Israel-Palestine’, Birkbeck College, October 2009. A podcast of the session is available here
Panellist on ‘Faiths and Freedoms’ session at the Convention on Modern Liberty, London, 28 February 2009. A video of the session is available here
‘Arguing about Israel: Is there another way?’ and ‘How secure is Anglo-Jewry?’ at Limmud, December 2008
‘The Elephant in the Room: What do British Jews not talk about?’ and ‘Developing Dialogue Within The UK Jewish Community’ at Limmud, December 2007
‘Jewish Texts of Wilful Ignorance and Denial’. Presented at Jewdas ‘Radical Torah’ evening, London, March 2007
Chair of ‘Postcards from the Unholy Land’ session at London Jewish Book Week, March 2007 Listen to the session here.
‘What Jews Can Learn From Satanism’ Presented at Jewdas ‘Punk Purim’ event, London, March 2006
Seminar on British Jewish Identity, Paideia, Sweden, March 2005.
‘Jews and Black Culture: From Al (Jolson) to Ali (G)’. Lecture given at the London Jewish Cultural Center, December 2004 and at Paideia, Sweden, March 2005.
‘Comparing British Jewish and Muslim Identities’. Presented at Limmud (with Dilwar Hussain), Nottingham 2004.
‘Alternative Models of Community’. Presented at Limmud Leadership Extensive – Seeds of Change, Nottingham 2001
‘‘Kyle’s Mom is a Stupid *$!%*: What ‘South Park’ Tells Us About Being Jewish’. Presented at Limmud, Nottingham, 2000.
‘Identity’. Panel session in conversation with Dr Tova Habertal at Get A Life: Conference on Jewish Teenagers, 1999.
‘ From Generation to Generation – Jewish Transmission’. Panel session with Dr Stephen Miller at Jewish Values and the Just Society, London, 1999.
‘Jewish Identity and Jewish Youth: Learning from Black and Asian Subcultures’. Presented at the Festival of Reform Judaism, London, 1999.
‘Israeli Youth Face the Future’. Presented at Limmud, Nottingham, 1998.
‘Exploring Jewish Space: A Critique of Limmud’. Presented at Limmud, Manchester, 1997.
‘Promoting Jewish Identity Among Young Adults: Learning From British Subcultures’. Presented at Limmud, Worcester, 1996.