William Watkin

William Watkin is Professor of Contemporary Literature and Philosophy at Brunel University, West London.

He is the author of In the Process of Poetry: The New York School and the Avant-Garde (2001), On Mourning: Theories of Loss in Modern Literature (2004) and The Literary Agamben: Adventures on Logopoiesis (2010), Agamben and Indifference (2014), Badiou and Indifferent Being (2017) and Badiou and Communicable Worlds (2021).

His seventh monograph, Bioviolence: How the powers that be make us do what they want (2021) is a contemporary history of the last ten, confusing, sometimes terrifying years, starting with ISIS and ending with Covid. At the same time, it is also a philosophical investigation of how power, force, coercion and violence has been upcycled by modern states into unique affordances of harm, often dressed up as concern for our wider wellbeing.

Prof. Watkin is also a published journalist, broadcaster, vlogger, and podcaster. He is also a painter and has painted the from covers of his last 3 books.