Welcome to our new website. If you experience any difficulties during your visit you can still view our old website.

Principal Lecturer (Diversity and Equal Opportunities Officer)

Telephone : +44 020 8392 3052
Email : B.Cocking@roehampton.ac.uk
Department : Media, Culture and Language
Office location : Queen's Building 024

Send a message to Dr Ben Cocking

Qualifications

1993 BA (Hons) Communications and Image Studies, University of Kent.
1995 MA Communications and Image Studies, University of Kent.
2001 PGCFHE, University of Gloucestershire.
2005 PhD Communications and Image Studies, University of Kent.

Research Interests

Media representations of the Middle East, particularly post 9/11; travel journalism, tourism and popular culture, postcolonial and identity theory, travel writing

Membership of Professional Bodies

Member of the British Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA)

Fellow - Royal Geographical Society (RGS)

Fellow - The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA)

Member of the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE)

Member of the International Society for Travel Writing (ISTW)

Consultancies Undertaken

Publishing contract with Pearson Higher Education to produce a series of online learning sites to accompany textbooks in Sociology and Media. May 2005 – publication September 2006.

Teaching Interests

Ben Cocking teaches on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules across the Media & Culture and Journalism programmes.

Expertise
Media & Cultural Studies, Journalism Studies; Identity and Culture; Travel & Tourism; Postcolonial theory; travel writing.

Current PhD Supervision:
Hugh Ortega Breton, 'In The Eye of the Storm: Paranoid Hegemony and the Culture of Fear in Anglo-American Political Culture'.

Chris Roberts, 'The Appropriation of ‘the dramatic’ in contemporary British current Affairs broadcasting: Narrative and Characterisation tropes, Critical Discourse Analysis [CDA] of Panorama.'

PhD supervision is available for projects in a variety of areas of cultural studies, news media, travel media and postcolonial theory.

Examining Experience
Kingston University external examiner on BA Media and Cultural Studies programme 2009-2012.

Publications

'Writing the end: Wilfred Thesiger, Freya Stark and the "Arabist tradition"', Journeys: International Journal of Travel Writing,Berghahn Press, Vol. 8. No.1-2, pp.57-76, 2007
'Travel Journalism: Imagining the Middle East' Questioning European Journalism: A Themed Issue of Journalism Studies, Routledge, pp. 54-68, February, 2009. 
'Newby and Thesiger: humour and lament in the Hindu Kush' Studies in Travel Writing, Routledge, Vol. 15, No.1, 2011. 
'Imagining Arabia: the emergence and decline of the "Arabist" tradition', British Journal of Middle East Studies, Taylor Francis (in preparation)

'Redmond O’Hanlon’s Into the Heart of Borneo: naturalist modes of representation beyond "belatedness"?' 

(Awaiting placement) 
(2007)The Arabist Tradition: 
Locating Freya Stark’s Southern Gates of Arabia and Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands, Travellers and Texts, Seventh Biennial ASTENE Conference 
(2007)'Redmond O'Hanlon's Into the Heart of Borneo: naturalist modes of representation beyond "belatedness"? Green Travel: Texts, Traditions, Tensions; an Interdisciplinary Colloquium. St John's College, Oxford University.
(2006)'Writing the end: Wilfred Thesiger, Freya Stark and the "Arabist tradition"' Centre for Research in Film and Audio-Visual Culture, Roehampton University, London.
(2005) Panel Chair, CRFAC 'Tabloid Culture and Media Spectacle' Symposium, Roehampton University, London.
Publishing contract with Pearson Higher Education to produce a series of companion website to accompany their Sociology textbooks.
© Roehampton University