Teodora Todorova
I am an Assistant Professor in Sociology since August 2023. I joined Warwick Sociology in September 2016 as a Teaching Fellow. Prior to that I lectured in Sociology at the University of Nottingham between 2014 and 2016, and I taught in the department of Culture, Film and Media between 2010 and 2014. I completed my PhD in Critical Theory in 2013 (awarded in 2014), and an MA in Post-Conflict Cultures in 2009 in the Department of Culture, Film and Media at The University of Nottingham. My first degree is a BA (with Honours) in Social and Cultural Studies (Cultural Sociology) from the University of Nottingham. During my time at Nottingham University I volunteered with Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Refugee Forum between 2006 and 2012.
My research is concerned with theories and practices of ethico-political responsibility in the context of ethno-nationalist conflict. I have worked on gendered violence and post-conflict reconciliation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and on decolonial solidarity activism in Palestine-Israel. More broadly, my work is concerned with grassroots activism and transnational civil society responses to gendered and racialised power and state violence.
I am British-Bulgarian. Ethnically I am half Bulgarian (indigenous Shopluk) and half Makedonian (via Greece). I have lived in the UK since I was 11 years old. I tried to learn to speak many languages but English is my primary language of self-expression. I research and teach about geopolitical contexts other than the ones which define me personally.
Teaching in 2024-2025
Term 1:
SO9C2 Understanding Social Science.
SO242 Designing and Conducting Social Research with Dr. Piermarco Piu.
Term 2:
SO360 State Crime, Human Rights and Global Wrongs.
SO126 Class and Capitalism in the Neoliberal World with Dr. Piermarco Piu.
Administrative Duties in 2024-2025
I am the Deputy Director of Undergraduate Studies (DDUGS) for Year 1.
Academic Leadership
Reading decoloniality – New scholars, new ecologies (warwick.ac.uk) Co-Editor since January 2024.
Midlands Conference in Critical Thought (MCCT) Collective since 2024.
Council for BRISMES (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies) Jan 2020 - Jan 2023.
Chair of BRISMES sub-committee on Public Outreach and Pedagogy Apr 2020 to Jan 2023.
Publications
Books
Decolonial Solidarity in Palestine-Israel: Settler Colonialism and Resistance from Within, 2021. London: Bloomsbury (formerly Zed).
Articles and Chapters
Todorova T. (2019) ‘Vulnerability as a politics of decolonial solidarity: The case of The Anarchists Against the Wall’ in Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2019.1647663.
Todorova, T. (2015) ‘Reframing binationalism in Palestine-Israel as settler decolonisation’ in Antipode: a radical journal of Geography, 47:5. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anti.12153/abstract.
Todorova, T, (2013) ‘Bearing Witness to Al Nakba in a Time of Denial’ in Matar, Dina and Harb, Zahera, eds., Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image and Communication Practices in Lebanon and Palestine. London: I.B. Tauris.
Todorova, T. (2011) ‘Giving Memory a Future’: confronting the legacy of mass rape in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina’ in Journal of International Women’s Studies Special Issue Vol. 12, No. 2. http://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol12/iss2/2/ .1
Book Reviews
'New voices in Israel settler colonial studies: Jewish anti-fascism and the false promise of settler colonialism, by Max Kaiser, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Palgrave McMillan, 2022; The oldest guard: forging the Zionist settler past, by Liora R. Halperin, Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 2021; The Israeli settler movement / assessing and explaining social movement success, by Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler and Cas Mudde, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021' in Settler Colonial Studies, 2024, Vol. 14, No. 1, 114-122. Available at New voices in Israel settler colonial studies: Settler Colonial Studies: Vol 14 , No 1 - Get Access (tandfonline.com).
'Samuel Burgum, Occupying London: Post-Crash Resistance and the Limits of Possibility, Abingdon: Routledge, 2018.' in Antipode Online; available at https://antipodeonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Book-review_Todorova-on-Burgum.pdf.
‘James Eastwood, Ethics as a Weapon of War: Militarism and Morality in Israel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.’ in Antipode Online ; available at https://radicalantipode.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/book-review_todorova-on-eastwood.pdf.
‘Frances S. Hasso and Zakia Salime (eds), Freedom Without Permission: Bodies and Space in the Arab Revolutions, Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.’ in Antipode Online; available at https://radicalantipode.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/book-review_todorova-on-hasso-and-salime.pdf.
‘Cahal McLaughlin, Recording Memories from Political Violence: A Filmmaker’s Journey, 2010.’ in Journal of Media Practice, 2012, 12: 2. Available at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14682753.2011.10774641.
Public Engagement
BRISMES - New Voices in Middle Eastern Studies - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xciyVmZb90U.
Non-refereed writing
‘Securing Human Rights in an Age of Securitisation’ (2018) in Council for British Research in the Levant, https://cbrl.ac.uk/news/item/name/securing-human-rights-in-an-age-of-securitisation.
‘Warehousing Palestine’ (2015) on OpenDemocracy.net, https://www.opendemocracy.net/beyondslavery/teodora-todorova/warehousing-palestine.
Awards and Nominations
2023: Athena SWAN Silver Award (Sociology self-assessment team).
2022: Warwick Excellence in Gender Equality Award (Athena SWAN self-assessment team).
2022: Nominated for Warwick Award in Teaching Excellence.
2019: Nominated for Warwick Award in Teaching Excellence.
2018: Nominated for Warwick Award in Teaching Excellence.
2018: Senior Visiting Fellowship at The Kenyon Institute in Jerusalem, Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL)
2017: Warwick Faculty of Social Science Research Forum Funding for Palestine Today Conference, co-organised by Law, PAIS and Sociology.
2017: Warwick Sociology Funding for Palestine Today Conference.
2017: BSA Early Career Forum Regional Event Funding.
2015: Nominated for University of Nottingham Students’ Union Staff Oscar in the categories of Teaching: Best All-Rounder, and Personal Tutor: Best All-Rounder.
2009: Winner of the FWSA (Feminist and Women’s Studies Association) Student Essay Competition.
