Simon Philpott

• Reader in Postcolonial Politics and Popular Culture School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University
• Email: simon.philpott@ncl.ac.uk
• Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 7473

Simon Philpott is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at Newcastle University. He has long-standing research interests in the politics and culture of Indonesia and has published extensively on popular culture and world politics. His interests in media coverage of violence extend to a range of publications on cinema, television and documentary film.

I served as a UN accredited observer of the 1999 general election in Indonesia and of the independence referendum in East Timor, also in 1999. These were both fascinating experiences of democratic processes at work and the flaws in such processes. In the case of East Timor, the experience stimulated an ongoing research interest.