Dr Gemma Flynn (Edinburgh University) delivered a set of public lectures contextualising and make sense of Punishment in the Age of Celebrity.Bringing her background as both a criminological academic and standup comedian, Gemma addresses issues of populism, public campaigns, celebrity fixation and America’s practice of mass imprisonment. She considers how these factors concatenate and explode into lines of action, informed by the unique cultural context and global influence of the United States. The success of the lectures led to invitations to present this work more widely, including to the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University.
The first lecture, ‘My Beautiful, Dark Twisted Fantasy – The Rise & Fall of Kanye West’, took place on 18th October and the second lecture, ‘Kim Kardashian, Colin Kaepernick and the End of Mass Incarceration’, took place on the 15th November.
University of Strathclyde