Welcome to my Website
I am Professor of International Relations at the University of Queensland.
I work on the politics of visuality and emotions, which I examine across a range of phenomena - from conflict and security to resistance, reconciliation and humanitarianism.
I hope you find the site interesting and helpful. I look forward to hearing from you.
Background
I am Professor of International relations at the University of Queensland, where I have worked since 1999 and where I coordinate a Visual Politics Research Program. I was twice Director of our Rotary Peace Centre and held visiting appointments at the Universities of Harvard, Cambridge, Tampere, Yonsei and Zürich as well as at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Pusan National University and the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. I am an elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
I grew up in Zürich, Switzerland, where my parents ran a small barber shop and where I embarked on a legal apprenticeship. After working in a notary office and completing my mandatory military service, I started a new education in international relations, first in Paris for three years and then at the University of Toronto (BA), the University of British Columbia (MA) and the Australian National University (Ph.D.). In-between I worked for two years as a Swiss military officer in the Korean Demilitarized Zone.
My Passion for Research
I am an academic because I have a passion for ideas and for writing. This is how I hope to make a difference. Like most scholars in my discipline, I started writing single-authored articles and books. But over the years I have come to embrace and value collaborations.
For over three decades I have sought to gain inspiration from aesthetic sources to rethink key dilemmas in global politics.
Aesthetics here refers not only to artistic sources, such as literature, art and visual culture, but also, and primarily, to the to the type of insights and understandings they engender. Aesthetics is about reaching beyond the analytical practices of the social sciences and being receptive to a more open-ended and creative sensibility about the political.
I first made a case for aesthetic in a 2001 article in the journal Millennium and then tried to apply this approach to examining a wide range of political phenomena, from security, peacebuilding and humanitarianism to protest movements and the conflict in Korea.
Visual Politics
During the past 15 years I have focused, in particular, on examining the role of images and emotions in politics.
I direct an interdisciplinary Visual Politics Research Program, which has held over 100 events - from workshops to public lectures and seminars – designed to open opportunities and support scholars at all career levels, from postgraduate students to senior professors. We run an associated Visual Politics Blog.
I currently pursue three principal research projects: 1) An interdisciplinary collaboration on the politics and ethics of visualising humanitarian crises, involving eight researchers and four partner organisations; 2) Work with Emma Hutchison on the role of emotions and affect in world politics: 3) An exploration of the links between visuality and security in Korea.
My work on visual politics is linked to long-term passion for photography, which I plan to display on this site.
My Passion for Teaching
I see teaching and research as intrinsically linked. I feel particularly passionate about cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary forms of learning.
I have taught over 70 semester-long courses over the past 30 years, mostly at the University of Queensland but also at other institutions, including at Pusan National University, the University of Tampere and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Topics I have taught include Theories of International Relations, Introduction to Peace Studies, Ethics and Human Rights, The Politics of Nonviolence, Politics and Art, Visual Politics, Comparative Politics, and Research/Writing Strategies.
I love working with Ph.D. scholars and mentoring them. I invest a considerable amount of time each week into this. I have supervised over two dozen PhD students as primary supervisor and many more as associate. Some have gone on to successful careers in the public and private sectors. Many of them have pursued academic careers and are now in senior positions, including several at professorial level.
Recent Publications (2023-2024)
Bleiker, Roland. Forthcoming. “Imagination and the Korean Crisis,” in Andrew Carr (ed), Strategic Imagination: Essays in Honour of Brendan Sargeant. Canberra: ANU Press.
Alam, Shahidul and Roland Bleiker. Forthcoming. “Photography: A Conversation between Shahidul Alam and Roland Bleiker,” in Caitlin Hamiltoin and Eliza Garnsey (eds), Creating Justice: Human Rights and Art in Conversation. Rowman and Littlefield.
Bleiker, Roland and David Shim. Forthcoming. “Can we move Beyond Conflict?” in Maja Zehfuss, Jenny Edkins and Tom Gregory (eds), Global Politics: A New Introduction. London: Routledge, 4th edition.
Bleiker, Roland and Emma Hutchison. Forthcoming. “Gender and Violence in News Media and Photography,” in Laura Shepherd, Caitlin Biddolph, Sian Perry and Jihyun Kim (eds), Handbook on Gender and Violence. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2nd Edition.
Hutchison, Emma, Roland Bleiker, Josephine Bourne and Youngju Hoang. 2024. “Decolonising Affect? Emotions and the Politics of Peace,” Cooperation and Conflict, 59(2): 149-70.
Hutchison, Emma and Roland Bleiker. 2024. “Humanitarian Photography: Images of Violence and Suffering as a Path Towards Visualising Peace,” in Tom Albeson and Jolyon Mitchell (eds), Picturing Peace: Photography, Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding, pp. 17-28. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Hutchison, Emma and Roland Bleiker. 2024. “Emotions, Reconciliation and Peacebuilding,” in Roger Mac Ginty (ed), Routledge Handbook of Peacebuilding. London: Routledge.
Campbell, David and Roland Bleiker. 2024. “Poststructuralism,” in Tim Dunne, Steve Smith, Milja Kurki and Katarina Kušić (eds), Theories of International Relation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 6th edition.
Bleiker, Roland. 2023. “Un-Disciplining the International,” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 49(3): 198-203..
Bleiker, Roland. 2023. “Visualising International Relations: Challenges and Opportunities in an Emerging Research Field,” Journal of Visual Political Communication, 10(1): 17-25.
Bleiker, Roland. 2023. “Forward: Decolonising Visual Global Politics,” in Anastasia Veneti and Maria Rovisco (eds), Visual Politics in the Global South. Houndmills: Palgrave.
Bleiker, Roland and Emma Hutchison. 2023. “Art and Aesthetics,” in Laura Shepherd and Caitlin Hamilton (eds), Gender Matters in Global Politics: A Feminist Introduction to International Relations, pp. 94-108. London: Routledge.
