Our good colleague and legendary politics Professor John Street will be retiring later this month after a career spanning over four decades at UEA. For UEA’s latest Politics at the Edge podcast, John sits with Clare Precey, Alan Finlayson and Pierre Bocquillon, to reflect on 42 years of teaching politics, media, culture and the politics of music at UEA in a wide-ranging discussion that covers everything from Margareth Thatcher’s political communication, to UEA’s interdisciplinary ethos, and to iconic hip hop band Salt-N-Pepa. Listen to the full conversation at: https://wavve.link/politicsedge.
In this excerpt, he explains how he used TV series Game of Thrones to teach the politics of popular culture, without watching a single episode!
John joined UEA in 1980, having completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford. During his 42 years at UEA, John has cultivated a renowned reputation as both a teacher and a researcher. His teaching specialism at UEA has focused on topics such as Politics and Media, and Politics and Popular Culture. John remains one of the most popular teachers in the history of the school and, in 2007, he received a UEA Excellence in Teaching Award.
John’s research is world leading in the study of protest music, the politics of sound and silence and the regulation of the UK press, with an international reputation as the leading authority on politics and celebrity culture. He is the author or co-author of seven books and some 80 articles. The third edition of his Media, Politics and Democracy was published in 2021. A special section of the British Journal of Politics and International Relations (2012) was devoted to his article on celebrity politics that appeared in the same journal in 2004, and which won the Best Article Award for that year. Currently, he is the Principal Investigator on an AHRC project: ‘Our Subversive Voice? The history and politics of the English protest song’.
As well as being a world-wide respected academic, John has been a passionate supporter and advocate for colleagues, mentoring early career and more senior colleagues alike. With an easy smile and rock star suave, John has been a steadfast supporter of the various School’s he has been a part of, holding several different admin roles, including Head of School.
We wish John the very best with his retirement.
I studied politics with John between 1984-87. His lectures were fun, and he was personally very supportive. I was most impressed with his declaration that he’d save his records rather than his books in the event of a fire! I hope he has a lovely retirement.