Raphaël is maître de conferences at the Sorbonne, Paris, where he lectures in English literature, Cultural Studies, Media Studies and Radio Journalism. Though born and bred in England, Raphaël has spent much of his adult life travelling between London, Edinburgh, Dublin and the Continent. After a short career as a rock band front man and music critic, he worked for several years as a radio presenter/producer and is currently piloting the Radio Sorbonne project. His radio work mainly focuses on the analysis of British current affairs with a cultural angle as well as issues dealing with the reception of popular music. He is known in radio circles as the “Dr of Pop”. He completed his PhD in 2001 on the performances of postmodernity in contemporary British poetry and subsequently left his home in Britain to take up his post in Paris.
Features
Monday, April 4 2005
The Catholic Cult of the Personality: Pope John Paul II (1920-2005)
how the 20th century made John Paul the Great.
Tuesday, October 26 2004
Where There Had Been Something, There Was Suddenly Something More: John Peel 1939-2004
John Peel was the man. For the past 40 years he made sure that Britain didn't just listen to over-produced throwaway one-hit-wonders.
Monday, September 20 2004
A Very Public Private Affair
December 2005 will mark the 100th anniversary of one of the fundamental principals of French republican ideology: the separation of Church and State. By way of preamble, and in conjunction with celebrations for the 60th anniversary of its liberation, Paris declared 2004 its "Year of Secularism". But one of France's paradoxes amongst its bourgeoisie seems to be that it is publicly a secular republic, but privately a Catholic state; simply professing the secularism of the Nation-State in no way guarantees religious tolerance. These are ideologically worrying times in France.
Columns
Thursday, January 15 2009
Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Eloquence of Rioters
This poetry, symbolically violent in its choice of literary form and symbolically subversive in its choice of Creole, reveals the literacy of rioters.
Tuesday, August 19 2008
Me, Myself & BBCi: Who's Watching Whom
The extensive use of mirrors in the Big Brother house behind which many of the cameras are hidden means that when the contestants hear the voice of authority, it is their own reflexion that they see back.
Thursday, June 19 2008
Re-make/Re-Model and the Becoming of Bryan Ferry
Roxy Music positioned themselves as postmodern: boundary blurring, self-reflexive, both serious in an art rock vein and playful in a glam rock vein.
Thursday, April 10 2008
1977: The Year Decency Died - Part II
If punk’s message was ‘destroy’, then inevitably wrapped up in its own scream of existence was its dying breath. No sooner was 1977 declared the year of punk than the death of punk was in the cards.
Wednesday, April 9 2008
1977: The Year Decency Died - Part I
"I loathe and detest everything they stand for and look like. They are obnoxious, obscene and disgusting."
Reviews
Monday, September 26 2005
Forest: Forest
If you're a deaf, tramp-like, fire-eating, unicyclist elf, then Forest might just offer the soundtrack to your life.
Thursday, June 23 2005
The Dead 60s: The Dead 60s
Playing the degeneration game. The Dead 60s take us back to the days of a leaden age.
Tuesday, June 7 2005
Gomez: Out West
Something old, something blue, something borrowed, but nothing new. If you don't know Gomez then this live double album was meant for you.
Tuesday, April 26 2005
British Sea Power: Open Season
Probably the first time anadiplosis has ever been used in a rock review. But that's the kind of band British Sea Power want to be.
Wednesday, April 20 2005
Stereophonics: Language. Sex. Violence. Other?
No more croaking ballads? Have Stereophonics finally decided to move on or are they just Britrock revivalist bandwagon jumpers?"
