Dr. Melanie Richter-Montpetit is Associate Professor in International Security. Before joining the University of Sussex, Dr. Richter-Montpetit worked as a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sheffield. Dr Richter-Montpetit pursued her undergraduate studies in Political Science at the Free University Berlin in Germany and then moved to Tkaronto/Toronto, Turtle Island/Canada, where she completed her MA and PhD studies in Political Science.

Her work has appeared in Security Dialogue, International Political Sociology, Millennium –Journal of International Studies and International Feminist Journal of Politics, among other outlets. She has received Fellowships from the Leverhulme Trust and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). She is the recipient of the ISA’s Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section’s inaugural ‘Early Career Community Engagement Award’ for her work supporting equity and diversity inside and outside the academy. She is former Chair of the LGBTQA Caucus of the ISA and former Co-Chair of the Working Group ‘Politics and Gender’ of the German Association of Political Science. She directed the Centre for Advanced International Theory (CAIT) from 2019-2022.

For a fuller description of her research, see a recent Interview with E-IR: https://www.e-ir.info/2017/04/03/interview-melanie-richter-montpetit/



PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES AND RECOGNITION
2019 Rutgers International Collaborative Grant, Rutgers University (together with Dr. Alison Howell).
2018 Visiting Fellowship at the Margherita von Brentano Center for Gender Studies, Free Universität Berlin (Germany) (summer 2018).
2017-2018 Visiting Scholar at the Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto (Canada) (1 June 2017 – 31 May 2018).
Leverhulme Research Fellowship 2017-2018.
Recipient of the inaugural FTGS Early Career Award for Community Engagement, International Studies Association's 58th Annual Convention, February 2017, Baltimore, MD.
2017-2018 Chair of the LGBTQA Caucus, International Studies Association (ISA)
2017-2018 Program Chair of the LGBTQA Caucus, Annual ISA 2018 Convention.
2014-2016 Co-Convenor of the German Association for Political Science’s (DVPW) ‘Politics & Gender’ Working group (‘Arbeitskreis Politik & Geschlecht’).
2014-2016 Book Series Co-Editor, “Politik und Geschlecht” (“Gender and Politics”), Barbara Budrich Publ.
Consulting. Member of advisory group on the situation of LGBTI in peacebuilding/conflict-/disaster-affected societies, International Alert, London (UK).


INVITED TALKS AND KEYNOTES

“Decolonising Research”, together with Heba Youssef, School of Humanities & Social Science Research Away Day, University of Brighton, 28 April 2022.

"Everything You Always Wanted To Know About LGBT Equality But Were Afraid To Ask: Rights, Liberation, Intersectionality", 25 June 2021, EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory), Heidelberg.

"Equal inclusion vs anti-militarism? ‘Women warriors’ and Liberal war in an Age of Post-racial/gender/sexual Triumph", Talk at Ashoka University, 8. April 2021.

“Sex, Race and Death: Representations of MENA in orthodox and critical security studies”, Annual Conference of the Political Science Department, American University in Cairo (AUC), 12-13 October 2019.

“Counter/insurgency in the (Settler) Colonial Present”, Talk at Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, 28 November 2018.

“Beyond the Erotics of Orientalism. Feminist and Queer investments in Liberal War,” Talk at the Margherita-von-Brentano Centre for Gender Studies, Free University Berlin, 28 June 2018.

“The Trouble with Gender: Rethinking Feminist Security Studies in ‘the colonial present’”, Keynote at the Annual Workshop of Women in International Security-Canada, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, 2 May 2018.

“Queerness and the Politics of Intersectionality”, Talk at the Decolonial Feminist Reading Group, University of Sussex, 19 April 2018.

“The Trouble with Gender: Rethinking Feminist Security Studies in ‘the colonial present’”, Keynote at the Annual Gender Studies Symposium, Lewis & Clarke College, Portland, OR, 8 March 2018.

“Beyond the Erotics of Orientalism: Sexualized torture, antiblackness and the persistence of White terror”, Volksbühne Berlin, The Permeable Stage, 14 December 2017.

“LGBT vs Queer/Trans theory: Coloniality and Intersectionality ‘in practice’”, Talk at the Department of Social Work, Ryerson University, 21 November 2017.

“Orientalism at War: Verticality, Muslim/ified targets and the politics of the sexed ‘colour line’,” Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, 8 May 2017.

“Beyond the Erotics of Orientalism. Feminist and Queer investments in Liberal War,” Keynote at the Opening of the Centre for Global Studies, Keele University, 9 December 2015.

“Beyond the sexed colour line? Liberal war and the imaginary geographies of Indian country in the Age of the Muslim/ified target,” Centre for American Studies, University of Sussex, 17 March 2015.



AREAS OF DOCTORAL AND POSTGRADUATE SUPERVISION
I welcome queries and research proposals from students in the following areas:
• Contemporary International Theory, especially feminist, queer, postcolonial, decolonial, critical Indigenous and Black radical thought.
• Theoretical and empirical engagements at the nexus of violence, subjectivity and law.
• Liberalism, liberal world order and the persistence of racial-colonial violence.
• Libidinal and political economies of war and violence.
• Critical War and Military Studies, in particular from feminist, queer and postcolonial perspectives.
• Feminist and Queer Security Studies.
• Transnational American studies.

For guidance on how to write a PhD proposal in the social sciences, see the excellent blog piece by Professor Alison Phipps (Sussex): https://genderate.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/proposal/