📢CIRAF Seminar Announcement📢25th March 12pm-1:30pm 💻 Christian Nationalism in Online and Offline Contemporary Far-Right Politics - with Andy Williams (Cardiff University) and Kate Barber (University of Reading). Free and online but registration is required www.eventbrite.com/e/christian-...

Christian Nationalism in Online and Offline Contemporary Far-Right Politics

The second in CIRAF's 2026 seminar series Looking forward / Looking back.

eventbrite.com

Today I am speaking at NHS Education for Scotland 'Sexual Offences: Working Together Best Practice Update' conference. An important event bringing together professionals and researchers in the field of gender-based violence to share best practice and updates on new research and policy

🔈New Publication Alert🔈I Was Delighted to Contribute the Chapter on Extremism to the IPSA Companion to Political Science: A Practical Introduction to the 200 Most Important Concepts and Work with the Wonderful Editors 😍 Check Out the Volume it is AMAZING 👇 link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/...

Extremism

link.springer.com

Call For Papers: Conspiracy Theories and Pseudolaw Conference 📅 Friday 19 June 2026 📍 Lincoln's Inns Fields, Queen Mary, University of London tinyurl.com/5bwhur6v Please email your submission (max 300 words) to k.leader@qmul.ac.uk by 28 February 2026. Please share.

Call for Papers - FINAL.docx

Conference Call for Papers Conspiracy Theories & Pseudolaw Queen Mary, University of London Friday 19 June 2026 Conspiracy theories have gone mainstream. What were once seen as fringe concerns are no...

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On 12 February, I'm (virtually) returning to @aifl.bsky.social! In this talk, I will explain why I think that legal and magical discourses are functionally identical and how approaching the analysis of legal texts with their magical qualities in mind will benefit researchers. Tickets below:

An Introduction to Magical Legal Pragmatics

Speaker: Dr. David Griffin

eventbrite.co.uk

📘✨ Happy to share that my chapter “Revenge porn: a new form of online gender-based violence discourse. A case study” has just been published in Discourse Approaches to Gender-Based Violence 🎉 (De Gruyter Mouton) 🗣️💻 🔗 www.degruyterbrill.com/document/isb...

Discourse Approaches to Gender-Based Violence

This volume illustrates how the adoption of discourse approaches can cast light on the complex and often subtle ways in which gender-based violence (GBV) discursively operates. The focus is on careful...

degruyterbrill.com

Really looking forward to reading Emily Powell's (@empowell.bsky.social) important new paper in Applied Corpus Linguistics. She examines how perpetrators of mass harm actively construct future attackers as an audience in their manifestos. Details here 👇 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Addressing imagined future attackers: A corpus analysis of shared agency in the online manifestos of perpetrators of mass harm

The manifestos that frequently accompany mass shootings are usually freely available online within minutes of an attack taking place and remain so for…

sciencedirect.com

⭐ Publication day! ⭐ New paper exploring what corpus linguistics can offer in terms of combating online fraud groups and activities. In a special issue of Applied Corpus Linguistics - Corpus Linguistic Approaches to Tackling Online Crime. doi.org/10.1016/j.ac...

Hate Crime is an Acute Problem in England & Wales Yet There's Still no National Plan to Tackle It. I’ve Joined Others Across Academia/ Civil Society Calling on the Government to Act Now and Deliver a New Hate Crime Action Plan. Read the Open Letter Here: tinyurl.com/kx89yxuv

Based on definitions others have offered and a review of works commonly held to belong to the field, I propose that "forensic linguistics" is best described as "that set of linguistic studies which either examine legal data or examine data for explicitly legal purposes." 2/5

Out now (and open access!) in the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law: "What We Talk About When We Talk About Forensic Linguistics" This article is my attempt to get a handle on the perennial problem of describing forensic linguistics as a coherent field. 1/5 rdcu.be/eJoJP

Was very happy to be invited on BBC Word of Mouth to discuss my research on the manosphere and language. If you missed the live broadcast on Sunday, it's available wherever you get your podcasts. pca.st/episode/5ce9...

The Language of the Manosphere

pca.st

Thought provoking article by @katebarber.bsky.social about legal cynicism in Men's Rights discourses. Well worth a read if you are researching/interested in the neutralisation of past and future harm.

Legal cynicism in Men’s Rights discourses: Using corpus linguistics to investigate how distrust in the legal system excuses and perpetuates sexual violence against women

The term legal cynicism refers to a type of legal disengagement which is associated with a lack of internal commitment to follow legal rules and a fai…

sciencedirect.com

@katebarber.bsky.social has studied legitimization through hyperlinks in blog posts. 🟦Data is taken from 5 blogs dealing with s€xuAl violence. 🔷Links are classified as different types of anchor text. 🔵Technological affordances are evidential resources 🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🤓Interested in how #affordances mediate discourse? 📚Most of our articles explore that. 🔎In this thread we highlight some of the articles that have analysed the role of #hyperlinks in different kind of outlets. More ⏬⏬

Check out the full special issue! We're in excellent company @mathewgillings.bsky.social @katebarber.bsky.social @danaroemling.bsky.social @timgrant123.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

Corpus linguistics for safeguarding children online 🔓 Out now with @crkennedy.bsky.social as part of a special issue on Corpus linguistic approaches to tackling online crime edited by the brilliant @wrightdw.bsky.social @livunienglish.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Corpus linguistics for safeguarding children online

Safeguarding children in schools broadly refers to the actions taken to protect children from abuse, prevent damage to health and development, and pro…

sciencedirect.com

🚨 New article in The Conversation from Callum Jones and myself. We wanted to focus specifically on how the white nationalist rallies were supported and amplified online by far-right actors like Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson theconversation.com/how-australi...

How Australia’s anti-immigration rallies were amplified online by the global far right

Prominent figures such as Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson are increasingly using social media to unite far-right groups and causes around the world.

theconversation.com

🚨New article published! 🟦 @katebarber.bsky.social explores hyperlinks in blog posts by extremist right-wing men. 🔷Drawing on positioning strategies, the legitimising function of anchor text is studied. 🔷Non-transparent anchor text perpetuates rape culture. 🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I have a rape case. Offence in April 2022. Reported within days. Charged Oct 2023. Trial listed July 2024. Put back to Oct 2024. No court available so put back to today. At court today, there's no court available AGAIN. FOURTH trial date now June 2026 - more than four years after the incident!!

My monograph 'Male Separatism: Discourse, Ideology, Argumentation' is now available for purchase as an ebook with John Benjamins, though you will need to pre-order for a physical copy. benjamins.com/catalog/daps...

The Women and Equalities Select Committee @commonswec.parliament.uk has accepted our team's evidence as part of it's public enquiry into 'Misogyny: the manosphere and online content' Read our submission below committees.parliament.uk/work/9089/mi...

Misogyny: the manosphere and online content - Written evidence - Committees - UK Parliament

Written evidence submission publications for Misogyny: the manosphere and online content.

committees.parliament.uk

Hugely admiring of the Law Commission. This important and detailed report (621 pages no less) has landed on my desk and unlike Pam Bondi's desk, it won't then disappear, so I am going to have to read it before re-writing my October lectures! lawcom.gov.uk/publication/...

Really Excited to Discuss My New Book 'The World White Web' at This Year's Author Meets Critic Session at the British Society of Criminology Conference With the LEGEND that is #NeilChakraborti and also Present My Recent Work on #AI and #Southport. Buzzing to Catch Up With Friends/Colleagues 😍😍

Fantastic Presentation from #KateBarber on Men's Rights Activists, Kate Outlines 4 Strategies to Disrupt the Legal Socialisation Process in MRA Discourse 1) Pre-Bunking Strategies 2) Legal Education 3) Legal Transparency 4) Acknowledgement of Grievances

Cannot wait to read this! Out today, from the brilliant @empowell.bsky.social. www.routledge.com/The-Language...

The Language of Mass Shooter Manifestos: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Pre-Crime Narratives

Bringing together scholarship from corpus linguistics, forensic linguistics, and criminology, this book offers a nuanced exploration of moral agency in the pre-crime narratives of offenders. The volum...

routledge.com

Emily Powell@empowell.bsky.social · last yr.

Out now: my monograph on the language of mass shooter manifestos.

📢We have another exciting CIRAF online seminar coming up this month! 'The 2024 Riots, the Far Right, and Racism' with Aaron Winter and Chris Allen 19th March, 4pm-5:30pm ✏️Register now to receive the Zoom link for the session. See you there! www.eventbrite.com/e/the-2024-r...

I have a new short piece out with Opinio Juris on US sanctions and the ICC which explores possible implications for the court's use of AI, digital evidence and wider investigation processes - tinyurl.com/mryjbdbe

Artificial Sanctions: Potential Implications of US Sanctions on the ICC’s use of AI and Digital Evidence

[Benjamin Thorne is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Criminal Law at the University of Reading] Almost 3 weeks into Donald Trump’s second term as US President and one could have been forgiven fo…

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New short article with Sarah Banet-Weiser, about the digital mirror-world, and how it is populated by strange doppelgangers of feminism 'Through the looking glass: feminism and reactionary politics in the digital hall of mirrors' journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...