Personal profile

Research overview

My research explores the psychological processes associated with collective and individual identity formation particularly in the context of conflict and collective violence.  I am interested in how anxiety functions as a political motivator, and how perceptions of material change can prompt political action and collective violence.  I have examined such phenomena in the contexts of expressions of anti-Semitism in Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe, the wars of the Former Yugoslavia, and in the conflicts of the Northern Caucasus.  My present research projects analyze the processes of identity formation in immigrant communities in Western Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom.  My research explores the relationship between a changing ethnic polity and perceptions of the state and community membership.  I ask the questions of how collectivities form a sense of identity through exclusion, and how new arrivals are to attach to majority or establish identity forms, or indeed whether they can.

My research is at the intersection of sociology, politics, and psychoanalysis, where I explores the performances of collective identity through acts of violence and works of imagination. I have received research grants from the British Council, the Carnegie Foundation, and the Independent Social Research Foundation, among others. In 2018 I was a Visiting Fellow at Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge; previously, I was an Academic Fellow of the Psychoanalytic Centre of Philadelphia, and a National Fellow of the American Psychoanalytic Association. I have received a number of teaching and research awards and my research appears in journals such as Topique: Revue Freudian; Terrorism and Political Violence; Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Society; and The International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, among others. In 2017 I was made a Founding Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council.   

Generally in my research I explore the confluences of conflict, collective violence, terrorism, psychology, psychoanalysis, critical theory, cultural studies, identity formation, and political economy.

Academic/Professional Qualification

Ph.D., University of Illinois at Chicago; B.A., University of Wisconsin at Madison; National Fellow, American Psychoanalytic Association; Academic Fellow, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia; Associate Research Fellow, University of Paris (VII)

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Education/Academic qualification

Doctor of Philosophy, Pursuing the Familiar Foreigner: The Resurgence of Antisemitism and Nationalism in Hungary Since 1989, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

25 Aug 199218 Mar 1999

Award Date: 27 May 1999

Bachelor of Arts, Political Philosophy, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON

Aug 1985Dec 1988

Award Date: 10 Dec 1988

External positions

Visiting Fellow, University of Cambridge

Jan 2018Jul 2018

Associate Senior Lecturer, University of Dundee

31 Jul 2017 → …

Fellow, Royal Society of Arts

May 2017 → …

Associate Lecturer, University of Dundee

1 May 201431 Jul 2017

Member, The Royal Society of Edinburgh

Nov 2011Apr 2016

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics where Jeffrey Stevenson Murer is active. These topic labels come from the works of this person. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
  • 1 Similar Profiles