Dr Tatevik Mnatsakanyan

Informed by my inter-disciplinary background, I draw on political theory and philosophy, cultural studies, linguistic and sociological approaches to interrogate changing modes of “sovereignty”, “security”, political violence, and their relationship to forms of resistance. These uniting themes run through my research in two specific and substantive subject areas: political contestations around UK and US pursuance of “war on terror” over the past decades; and multiple forms of the politics of denial, in particular, genocide denial with implications for postgenocide politics and reconciliation. I also explore the interconnections and entanglements of development-security-sustainability and forms of violence circulating in these political domains.

Recently, I was awarded Senior Fellow of Higher Education (SFHEA) by Advance HE (formerly, the Higher Education Academy, the UK’s nationwide professional scheme advancing excellence in higher education), in recognition of over ten years of my teaching and education-related leadership at Loughborough University.

I joined the Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs in 2016, after completing my PhD in Politics (International Relations) at the Department of Politics, University of Exeter, UK. I have a multi-disciplinary background with previous degrees in International Studies, Diplomacy, as well as Linguistics and Area Studies. Before joining Loughborough University London, I taught International Relations and Security Studies at the Department of Politics, University of Exeter. Before embarking on my PhD, I gained several years of experience working for the World Bank, and the Embassy of Armenia in London. Such practitioner work experience, combined with my academic background across disciplines, informs my current teaching and research.

Leadership Roles

I am the Director of Studies (Education-focused) for Loughborough University London. Working alongside the Associate Dean for Education, in the past four years, I have been leading on teaching and assessment policy adoption, implementation and good practice across the School in London, advancing excellence in all areas.

In addition to this School-wide roles, I am also the Chief Programme Director for the Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs, coordinating and advancing all its MSc Programmes; as well as the Programme Director for, and more closely looking after, the programme MSc International Sustainable Development.

Teaching

I design and teach across several postgraduate modules—with a strong focus on critical-theoretical approaches, and on interdisciplinarity. These include International Relations and Security in Polycrisis; Peace and Conflict Transformation; Diplomacy in the Digital World; and (previously), The Politics of Violence: Development, Security and Sustainability. As part of IDIA’s wider commitments, I have led on and organised multiple events under the Inside the Profession Series aiming to connect teaching and learning with professional practice and experience.

Academic background

I completed my PhD in Politics (International Relations) at the University of Exeter, UK in 2015. I also hold an MA in Diplomatic Studies from the University of Westminster, London, and an MA in Political Science and International Studies from the American University in Armenia. My undergraduate education was in Linguistics and Area Studies, from Yerevan State University of Languages and Social Sciences, Armenia.

Current research and collaborations

I draw on political theory, continental philosophy, cultural studies, and sociology - in particular but not limited to the psychoanalytical and philosophical works of Julia Kristeva, linguistic and cultural thought of Michail Bakhtin, the political thought of Giorgio Agamben and the thought of Deleuze and Guattari - to interrogate political contestations around “security” and what this means for changing modes of “sovereignty” and “subjectivity” and thereby resistance and possibilities for political transformation. Substantively, my work is on “war on terror” and how this has shaped and been shaped by encounters with anti-war resistance and critique.  A second strand of my research is in Genocide Studies, aiming to animate a dialogue between the fields of Genocide Studies and International Relations previously somewhat disengaged from each other. Drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s political thought, and through a conjunctural postcolonial lens, I bring Critical International Relations theorisations on “sovereignty,” “violence,” and “subjectivity” to bear on interrogations of genocide denial, and postgenocide reconciliation. Transversal to both of these strands of research is my interest in multiple form of the politics of denial, which I have explored in security policy, as well as in the area of genocide denial, with implications both for the long-term political and societal impact of forms of violence and justifications thereof; and for imaginaries of resistance and transformation.

Publications

My job role and working hours, in the past 10 years, have primarily been devoted to teaching and education leadership. In the very limited time remaining for research, I have published the following:

1. Book (forthcoming): Tatevik Mnatsakanyan (2027). Sovereignty through a Long 'War on Terror': Carnivals of Resistance and Terror, Routledge Interventions Series, London: Routledge.
2. Tatevik Mnatsakanyan (2022). 'Denials “From Seabed to Space”: Assemblages of (In)Security and Denial in the Politics of Security', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 50, issue 2, pp. 352-378. 
3. Tatevik Mnatsakanyan (2021). ‘Sovereignty, Subjectivity, Denial: The Armenian Genocide, Generative Denials and Postgenocide Politics in Contemporary Turkey’, in Klejda Mulaj (ed.), Postgenocide: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Effects of Genocide (Oxford University Press).
4. Tatevik Mnatsakanyan (2019). ‘The Carnivalesque and Resistance,’ in Jenny Edkins (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Critical International Relations (London: Routledge).

Tatevik is currently working on:

My job role and contract in the past 10 years have primarily been teaching and education-leadership focused. In the very little time remaining for research, I dedicate myself to the following:

1. I am currently writing up my book entitled The Carnivalised Subject of ‘War on Terror’: Carnivals of Resistance and Terror, and Transmutations of a Long War, for which I have secured a contract with Routledge. It is forthcoming as part of Routledge’s critically acclaimed Book Series Interventions in Critical International Relations (series eds. Jenny Edkins and Nick Vaughan-Williams). The book reopens the debate on ‘war on terror,’ despite, or rather precisely because of, recent relative forgetting of it in the Western public realm. However, primarily, this is a book on crisis of sovereignty told through the medium of navigating—working-through—‘war on terror’ as a psychoanalytic revolt.While (crisis of) sovereignty has variously been explored in critical IR, none have done so through conceptions of ‘crisis’ and ‘revolt’ in Kristevan psychoanalysis. The book develops an alternative theoretical and analytical approach: it brings Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytic thought, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s cultural and political critique, especially through his notion of the carnivalesque, to bare on political theories on sovereignty and security, where the carnivalesque is conceived and applied as a wider category enabling a new glimpse into the fault-lines of sovereign-subjectivity-resistance.
2. I am also involved in a research team, together with Giulia Piccolino (Department of International Relations, Politics and History) and Aya Jazaierly (School of Architecture): having obtained a small funding from the University’s Vibrant and Inclusive Communities (VIC) Strategic theme, we are building a network of scholars and exploring prospects of an interdisciplinary collaborative project on the legacies and long-term impacts of events massively affecting human security, such as armed conflicts, genocides and natural disasters. This focus fits within the VIC ‘Past & Future’ research area, in particular by advancing the understanding of how negative historical experiences can inform the creation of inclusive futures.

Completed PhD / research supervisions

I have co-supervised (along with Christina Oelgemoller) to successful completion a PhD project on the politics of migration through a postcolonial lens, on the case of Nigeria.

Dialogues in Peace Series

I have initiated and convened Dialogues in Peace, a new series of events aiming to bring together Loughborough and external scholars working within conflict and peace studies, and various practitioners involved in conflict, peace, and reconciliation, in order to engage in productive dialogues and conversations around specific challenges, themes, and cases; to generate new ideas, and forge new collaborations. The Inaugural session hosted a Panel across the scholarly-practitioner world: Panellists—Prof 'Funmi Olonisakin, Founding Member of African Leadership Centre, King’s College London, Prof Oliver  Richmond, University of Manchester, and Mr Tahir Aziz, Senior  Advisor,  South Asia, Conciliation Resources; Discussant—Dr Giulia Piccolino.

Diaspora community and external involvements

I am also a member of, and occasionally present at activities organised by, the Armenian Institute, London; and Hayashen – CAIA.