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Dr Kevin McSorley

Dr Kevin McSorley

Profile summary

  • Central Academic Staff
  • Senior Lecturer in Sociology
  • Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
  • School of Social Sciences & Global Studies
  • Sociology
  • kevin.mcsorley

Web links

Professional biography

I joined the OU as Senior Lecturer in Sociology in October 2020, having previously taught at the Universities of Surrey and Portsmouth.  My expertise includes social theory; violence, war and militarism; the body and the senses; technology and new media.

Research interests

My research explores transformations in violence, warfare and militarism particularly through the lens of the body and sensory experience.  It develops an analysis of war as a wide-ranging social institution and politics of experience, focusing upon the myriad embodied, sensory and affective practices and regimes through which it lives and breeds. 

My research projects War and the Body and Sensing War have produced agenda-setting events, networks and publications.  My work has explored the lived experiences of war and the afterlives of conflict, militarism and physical culture, the militarisation of sensation, drone warfare and torture, digital war archives.  My work also explores the significance of violence, warfare and militarism for the shaping of wider social and political life.   

PhD supervision

I am happy to supervise PhD projects and welcome inquiries from students working on any of the above areas of research interest. 

Teaching interests

I currently chair production of the new Level 3 Sociology module Social Theory: Changing Social Worlds (DD 318).  I also work on production of the new interdisciplinary Level 1 module Global Challenges (DD 113), and presentation of the Level 3 Sociology module Making Social Worlds (DD 308). 

Publications

Discussing Empathy and Critique in the Ethnography of Things Military: A Conversation (2021)
Mohr, Sebastian; Sørensen, Birgitte Refslund; Weisdorf, Matti; Ben-Ari, Eyal; Hautzinger, Sarah; McSorley, Kevin; Scandlyn, Jean and Wool, Zoë
Ethnos, 86(4) (pp. 694-711)

Sensate regimes of war: Smell, tracing and violence (2020-04-01)
McSorley, Kevin
Security Dialogue, 51(2-3) (pp. 155-173)

Predatory War, Drones and Torture: Remapping the Body in Pain (2019)
McSorley, Kevin
Body & Society, 25(3) (pp. 73-99)

Doing military fitness: physical culture, civilian leisure, and militarism (2016)
McSorley, Kevin
Critical Military Studies, 2(1-2) (pp. 103-119)

Towards an Embodied Sociology of War (2014)
McSorley, Kevin
The Sociological Review, 62(2_suppl) (pp. 107-128)

War and the Body: Cultural and military practices (2012-09-07)
McSorley, Kevin and Maltby, Sarah
Journal of War & Culture Studies, 5(1) (pp. 3-6)

Helmetcams, militarized sensation and 'Somatic War' (2012)
McSorley, Kevin
Journal of War & Culture Studies, 5(1) (pp. 47-58)

Archives of Enmity and Martial Epistemology (2021-01)
McSorley, Kevin
In: Agostinho, Daniela; Gade, Solveig; Thylstrup, Nanna Bonde and Veel, Kristin eds. (W)Archives: Archival Imaginaries, War, and Contemporary Art (pp. 39-58)
ISBN : 9783956794568 | Publisher : Sternberg Press | Published : Berlin

Playing in the End Times: Wargames, Resilience and the Art of Failure (2019-12-12)
McSorley, Kevin
In: Hammond, Philip and Pötzsch, Holger eds. Wargames: Memory, Militarism and the Subject of Play (pp. 37-52)
ISBN : 978-1501351150 | Publisher : Bloomsbury | Published : London

Cosmopolitanism and the Body (2015-06-29)
McSorley, Kevin
In: Marinopoulou, Anastasia ed. Cosmopolitan Modernity. New Visions of the Cosmopolitan (pp. 203-220)
ISBN : 9783034308731 | Publisher : Peter Lang | Published : Bern

Introduction: War and the Body (2015-06-09)
McSorley, Kevin
In: Mcsorley, Kevin ed. War and the Body: Militarisation, Practice and Experience. War, Politics and Experience (pp. 1-31)
ISBN : 9781138924949 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon

Rethinking War and the Body (2015-06-09)
Mcsorley, Kevin
In: Mcsorley, Kevin ed. War and the Body: Militarisation, Practice and Experience. War, Politics and Experience (pp. 233-244)
ISBN : 9781138924949 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon

Too Fat to Fight? Obesity, Bio-Politics and the Militarization of Children’s Bodies (2015-06-09)
Burridge, Joseph and Mcsorley, Kevin
In: Mcsorley, Kevin ed. War and the Body: Militarisation, Practice and Experience. War, Politics and Experience (pp. 62-77)
ISBN : 9781138924949 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon

The Fangs Behind the Mask: Everyday Life in Wartime Chechnya (2015-05-28)
McSorley, Kevin
In: Sylvester, Christine ed. Masquerades of War. War Politics and Experience (pp. 118-135)
ISBN : 9781138810693 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon

War and the Body: Militarisation, Practice and Experience (2015-06-09)
McSorley, Kevin ed.
War, Politics and Experience
ISBN : 978-0415692151 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon