Professor Jonathan Pugh

• Professor of Island Studies School of Geography, Politics, and Sociology, Newcastle University
• Advisory Board Member

Jonathan Pugh is Professor of Island Studies, Newcastle University, UK. He has more than 100 publications and is particularly noted for his work on the ‘relational’ and ‘archipelagic’ turns in island studies, disrupting the figure of the insular island. Jonathan has held a number of visiting fellowships, given international keynote addresses, and/or invited lectures, including at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, Virginia Tech, London, Harvard, Cornell, Vienna, Zurich, Trinity College Dublin, Oxford, Rutgers, California, University of West Indies and National Taiwan Normal University.

Jonathan's work currently incorporates three main themes:

1. ‘Anthropocene Islands’ explores how work with islands has become prolific in broader Anthropocene thinking, especially for the development of relational approaches, ontologies and epistemologies, which challenge modern frameworks of reasoning. Publications include the freely downloadable book 'Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds' (Pugh and Chandler, 2021) and freely downloadable Dialogues in Human Geography paper 'Anthropocene Islands: there are only islands after the end of the world' (Chandler and Pugh, 2021) .
2. ‘Abyssal Geography’ examines how the Caribbean has become generative for a broader contemporary mode of critical thought – which we call ‘abyssal thought’ – seeking to index the violence of and refuse the modern human and world. Publications include the freely downloadable paper ‘Abyssal Geography’ (Chandler and Pugh, 2023) which is a keynote address presented at the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers annual conference in 2022 and the freely downloadable book ‘The World as Abyss: the Caribbean and Critical Thought in the Anthropocene.’ (Pugh and Chandler, 2023) 
3. Establishing platforms for discussion and debate, the key themes of these two projects are associated with a monthly reading group, monthly early career study space, dedicated section of Island Studies Journal, ongoing workshops, sessions at conferences, podcasts, interviews, and talks. All information available here https://www.anthropoceneislands.online/