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Who We Are

Progressive Connexions is a not-for-profit network, limited by guarantee and registered in the United Kingdom.This is our wonderful team who help to make the vision real

Network Founder & Interdisciplinary Terraformer
Dr Rob Fisher has been involved in creating innovative interdisciplinary programmes for over 30 years. A former Head of Philosophy and Course Leader for Theology at Westminster College, Oxford, Rob walked away from formal academia in order to concentrate on developing creative new possibilities for interdisciplinary work which increasingly encroaching business models were stifling in higher education. A former Fellow of Harris Manchester College in Oxford, Rob was a CEO of several companies before founding Inter-Disciplinary.Net and spending the next 18 years building 70 global interdisciplinary research projects, founding an interdisciplinary publishing house with 4 imprints and successfully gaining accreditation from the British Accreditation Council. He is also Series Editor for a collection of interdisciplinary publications with Brill and an external examiner and consultant for a number of Universities, institutions and companies across the world. A passionate progressive rock fan, he writes for two influential progressive music portals and collaborates on a weekly progressive rock radio show.

Strategic Interdisciplinary Enrichment Coordinator
Teresa Cutler-Broyles teaches film analysis and cultural theory at the University of New Mexico, including Cult Film, The Zombie Movie, Post-Apocalyptic Film, Architecture in Film and Introduction to Film Studies. She spends her summers teaching at the Umbra Institute in Perugia, Italy focusing on the interplay of Italian history, identity, culture and food, with an occasional foray into the history of Italian gardens.
Teresa is an independent researcher and writes both fiction and non-fiction. Recent academic publications include chapters on Star Trek, Forever Knight, Afghan Children in Film, American Tribal Style belly dance, performance theory, and more. She is executive editor of The Big Top on the Big Screen: Explorations of the Circus in Film (2020), and co-editor of Re-Imagining Spaces and Places (Vol 1) (2022), Moving Spaces and Places (Vol 2) (2022) and Kink and Everyday Life (2021). Forthcoming publications include chapters on the series Doctor Who, the films Legend (1985), The Shining (1980) and Cat People (1942 and 1982), and on alien women in the Star Trek franchise.
In truly interdisciplinary form, Teresa’s research interests include popular culture, science fiction, vampires and other creatures of the night, monsters, circuses and other liminal spaces, performance, sexuality and gender studies, architecture, the history of garden design, travel, wine and more.

eDisseminations Explorer
Lorraine Rumson is in English Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, where she is writing a dissertation on the subject of Victorian Jewish Medievalism. She is an interdisciplinary cultural studies scholar, and researches minor, decanonized, popular, and “bad” literature and cultural products of the late nineteenth century. Progressive Connexions picked her up at the Kink conference, where she was presenting on her secondary research subject, Victorian porn. Since joining Progressive Connexions in her original role as Advertising Coordinator in early 2019, she has increasingly worked on the organisation’s strategy, and is enthused by all manner of new projects and possibilities for bringing interdisciplinary scholarship to a wider audience. In addition to Victorian literature, her interests include spreadsheets.

Administrative Coordinator
Nsungbemo Ezung holds a Ph.D in Philosophy of Science from India’s North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. His thesis critiqued the idea of confirmation of theory in Natural Sciences by taking into account indeterminism and some of the latest findings in high energy physics. Apart from this, he contributed a large number of critical essays on Indian state of Nagaland and its political twists and turns from which he developed a book entitled “Indo-Naga Political Conflict: Rewriting the Post-Colonial Idea of Nation (Whetstone Publications, 2021)”. He is an avid reader and a sensitive thinker about issues that affect future of humanity.

Happiness Ambassador
Hello!!! My name is Mr George Edward Pants esquire, I’m 13 years old and I’m a Happiness Ambassador! I’m a rescue Dalmatian and I’ve lived with my mum forever (I have no concept of time unless it’s measured in treats!! I enjoy walkies, running around, generally annoying the local wildlife, snuggling and treats! Dinner time is just the best! My favourite toy is a pink squeaky pig and I love him. I live with Jasmine Hazel Shadrack of the “Music &…” hub.


Board of Advisors

Abby Bentham teaches at the University of Salford, where she delivers modules on narrative fiction, critical theory and evil. Her research interests include transgression, empathy, psychopathy, psychoanalysis and masculinity. She works across literature, film and television and is a regular on the conference circuit. Not one to sit on her hands, Abby is also a freelance copywriter and a regular contributor to Real Crime magazine.

Abi Cannons is Key Account Manager – Events for Slido, an award-winning audience interaction tool for live Q&A, polling and slide-sharing, where she works with large-scale event agencies and PCOs, to help them get the most from their speakers and audience. With 9 years conference management experience, and previously at Reed Exhibitions, Abi has organised conferences for event professionals on four continents. Pursuing a passion for event design and event technology, Abi also volunteers as Community Manager with Event Tech Lab, an incubator for event tech start-ups. Abi loves nothing more than getting underwater, and is a keen scuba diver.

 

Ioana Cartarescu has been involved in interdisciplinary research for the past several years. With a PhD in sociology from the University of Bucharest, she has always taken a great interest in understanding and exploring cultures and communities and has been absolutely fascinated by their diversity, their dynamism, their adaptation mechanisms and above all, their interconnectedness. With a significant experience in the field of non-government organizations, Ioana is a passionate advocate for equality and human rights. She strongly believes that amazing things can happen when research and advocacy come together and that the best way to create lasting and positive change in society is through interdisciplinary understanding and collaboration.

Ann-Marie Cook holds a PhD in Film from the University of East Anglia, an MA in Australian Studies from King’s College London and an MA in Film Studies from New York University. She taught film, English and general education courses for six years at University of the Pacific. She is currently an independent scholar whose research and publishing covers a diverse range of topics including cultural studies, transmedia, film history, national cinemas of Britain and Australia, literary adaptations, queer theory, celebrity, fandom, Australian politics, British politics and television studies. She is also Principal Policy and Legislation Officer at the Queensland Department of Justice and Attorney General.

Luca Lo SiccoMBA, PhD, currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia (USA) where he is Professor of Fashion Marketing & Management and Associate Chair at SCAD University. Previously, Dr Lo Sicco has lived in London for more than 16 years where he was Course Director of  two MA in Fashion Business at University of the Arts London. He has a wide international experience having taught in several countries such as New Zealand, France and Italy. Before starting his academic career, Dr Lo Sicco has worked in the Fashion Industry for companies such as Gucci, Valentino, Fendi, and Carlin International Paris. His publications and articles centre on his research interests which include the evolution of luxury brand management and the development and application of teaching models to improve creativity in academic environments.

Justin Meggitt is Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religion and Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. He is also Visiting Researcher at the Institute for Ethnology, History of Religions and Gender Studies at Stockholm University. He teaches and publishes widely in a number of areas, from magic in antiquity to early-modern transcultural encounters in the Mediterranean, but has a special interest in facilitating critical, public understanding of religion, past and present, and the role that interdisciplinary approaches play in that.

John Parry is the Jeffrey Bain Scholar and Professor of Law, Lewis and Clark Law School, USA. John teaches courses on civil litigation. His scholarly work focuses on legal structures that restrain or permit the exercise of state power on individuals, with a particular emphasis on civil rights law, foreign relations and international law, and criminal justice. He practiced law for several years with Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C. He is a former law clerk to the Hon. James R. Browning of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and former chair of the Supreme Court Office of the Harvard Law Review.

Jonathan Rollins received his Doctorate in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto, Canada. As a professor at Ryerson University, he focused his research on the intersectional entanglements of migration and diaspora studies, cultural studies, gender studies, and queer theory. He has recently accepted a job with the Canadian federal government, working as an analyst in close cooperation with global affairs.

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Cristina Santos is an Associate Professor at Brock University where she teaches in the Dept. of Communications, Popular Culture and Film. Her work focuses on sexuality and gender studies from an intersectional feminist perspective. Her interests are in exploring the construct of “monstrous women” from an interdisciplinary and multi-cultural approach as seen in literature, film, television, popular culture and mythology. She also investigates the construct of political and social deviance and trauma in life narratives as the construction of a personal and communal sense of identity that challenges official history and patriarchy. Her teaching and research is informed by feminist theory, post-colonial discourse, theory of alterity and gender and sexuality studies. Most recently, she is the author of Unbecoming Female Monsters: Witches, Vampires, and Virgins (2016) editor of various volumes, amongst which is Virgin Envy: The Cultural (In)significance of the Hymen (2016).

 

Karl Spracklenhas held senior officer positions within the Leisure Studies Association, and was its Chair until 2013. He is closely involved in the International Sociological Associations’s Research Committee 13 (Leisure). He has been the Secretary of the International Society for Metal Music Studies, is currently the Editor of Metal Music Studies and was a key organiser of the British Sociological Association’s Alcohol Study Group for a number of years. His research interests include leisure theory, communicative leisure, privatization of leisure spaces, tourist spaces and tourist performativity, whiteness and masculinity, class, northernness and national identity, rugby league, whisky and real-ale tourism and various music genres (metal, folk, neo-folk and goth). He researches and writes by himself and in collaboration with a range of other people.