Graham O'Dwyer

As the departmental specialist in the United States, I have teaching and research interests in various aspects of American government and US foreign relations. I am particularly interested in the history and development of American federalism, the theoretical underpinnings of the US Constitution, the role and development of the US Supreme Court, along with environmental politics and polices in the US. I am also the lead author on a major new textbook on American government and politics that is due to be published in 2024 and am also working on a separate monograph that details the history and development of environmental politics in the United States. 

I studied for my undergraduate degree in American Studies and International Relations at Keele University (2001–2004) and stayed on at Keele over 2004–2005 to complete my Master of Research in the history of political thought.

Between leaving Keele in 2005 and beginning my PhD in International Relations at the University of Kent in 2008, I spent my time working as a researcher, but mostly explored my passion for mountaineering, alpinism, and rock climbing in Italy and France during this time. 

My doctoral thesis explored the intellectual discord in Franco-American relations during the 1960s, exploring the ontological basis of the varying views of the ‘content’ of the international system. This work was published in 2017 under the title of Charles de Gaulle, the International System and the Existential Difference (Routledge).

Outside of academic life, I spend a lot of time rock climbing, hiking, and fell running in the UK, Europe, and South America, along with a keen interest in adventure photography. Feel free to say 'hi' if you're also at the climbing wall in Reading some time or if you need a belay for any grade of climbing.