Dr Brad West

Personal profile

Lecturer in Sociology at University of Bristol from 2010. Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Flinders University, 2006-2010; Lecturer in Sociology, Flinders University, 2003-2006; Associate Lecturer, University of Newcastle (NSW), 2001-2002; Bicentennial Research Fellow, King’s College London, 2001.

Research

My research focuses on the changing dynamics of national collective memory. This involves examination of the way history is remembered, in particular through the commemoration of significant national events, and accounting for the power of these pasts in shaping social action, meaning and contestation in contemporary social life.  Current research projects include analysis of the narratives and memorialisation surrounding the 2002 Bali Bombing; the rise of ‘dark tourism’ at war sites in Vietnam and pilgrimage like activity at the WWI Gallipoli battlefields in Turkey. I have also written widely on the state of cultural theory and contours of the sub-discipline cultural sociology.

Teaching

SOCI10004 Thinking Sociologically

SOCI30093 Tourist Culture

SOCIM3101 Contemporary Sociological Theory

Fields of interest

Cultural theory, cultural sociology, national idenity, collective memory and commemoration, disasters and crises, international tourism

Full publications list in the University of Bristol publications system