Researcher

Associate Professor Michael Richardson

My Expertise

Drones, surveillance, militarisation of culture and society, algorithmic culture, literary trauma, emerging technologies, witnessing and testimony, political communication. 

Keywords

Fields of Research (FoR)

Communication and media studies, Cultural studies, Literary studies

Biography

Dr Michael Richardson researches the intersections of war, surveillance, trauma, witnessing, and emerging technology.

Michael Richardson is an Associate Professor of Media at UNSW Sydney, where he co-directs the Media Futures Hub and Autonomous Media Lab, and an Associate Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision-Making + Society. Drawing on a transdisciplinary background in media studies, cultural studies,...view more

Dr Michael Richardson researches the intersections of war, surveillance, trauma, witnessing, and emerging technology.

Michael Richardson is an Associate Professor of Media at UNSW Sydney, where he co-directs the Media Futures Hub and Autonomous Media Lab, and an Associate Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision-Making + Society. Drawing on a transdisciplinary background in media studies, cultural studies, literarature, and international relations, his research examines technology, violence, and affect in war, security, and surveillance.

Michael is the author of the books Gestures of Testimony: Torture, Trauma, and Affect in Literature (Bloomsbury 2016) and Nonhuman Witnessing: War, Data, and Ecology after the End of the World (Duke UP, 2024). His research also appears in edited collections and leading academic journals such as Theory, Culture & Society, New Media & Society, Continuum, Environmental Humanities, Cultural Studies, and Media, Culture and Society. Michael also writes for non-academic outlets, such as ABC News, The Conversation, and Sydney Review of Books. Michael held an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE190100486) and has been the recipient of internal and external grants exceeding AUD$450,000.

An experienced media commentator and former ABC Top 5 Humanities Researcher, Michael's expertise extends across a range of topics at the nexus of media, technology and culture, including drone warfare, surveillance, algorithms, cultural trauma, affect and emotion, political violence and torture. He is available for comment on these and related issues and contacted by email or via the UNSW Newsroom.


My Grants

Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, 2019-2021,"Drone Witnessing: Technologies of Perception in War and Culture" ($363,182)

Ian Potter Travel Scholarship 2018 $4,000

Note: external funding only listed


My Qualifications

BA Hons (University of New South Wales), MSc (London School of Economics), PhD (Western Sydney University)


My Awards

2020 ABC Top 5 Humanities Researcher

2020 Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Dean's Research Award, Early Career Achievement

2018 Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Dean's Teaching Award, Excellent Early Career Teacher

2017 Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Dean's Research Award, Best Monograph by an Early Career Researcher

2014  Varuna Publishers Introduction Program Fellowship, awarded by Text Publishing for development of PhD novel

2011 Australasian Association of Writing Programs Co-op Bookshop Postgraduate Prize

2006 Heinz Harant Award for Outstanding Service & Leadership, UNSW


My Research Supervision


Supervision keywords


Areas of supervision

I am available for Masters and PhD supervision across literature, media and cultural studies. While I am always happy to be approached about related topics, my expertise best suits the following areas: 

  • Cultural and political impacts of military technology, including drones and artificial intelligence
  • Affect studies in media and literature
  • Media, war and technology
  • Social, cultural, and political impacts of artificial intelligence, machine vision, and related technologies
  • Literature and testimony
  • Violence and representation
  • Affect and politics
  • Trauma studies

Currently supervising

Simon Taylor (PhD), "AI as Universal Solvent: autonomous decision systems and their ‘disjointed instrumentalism’

Kyla Allison (PhD), "Affect, Impasse, and Sexual Violence in the #MeToo Era"

Rachel Rowe (PhD), "Financialisation Logics and Digital Health Technologies"

Asal Mahmoodi (PhD), "“We Don’t Have Gays In Iran”: Masking Queerness and Affective Resistance in Contemporary Iran"

Maddie Hichens (PhD), "me, alone with everyone: interrogating the real of ‘digital anxiety’"

 

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Videos

Interview with Forensic Architecture's Eyal Weizman
Testimony, Truth and Technology