James Rodgers

Dr James Rodgers is Reader (Associate Professor) in International Journalism).

Since September 2022, he has been the programme director of the BA Journalism, Politics and History.

In the academic year 2023-24, he is teaching on the MA International Journalism (International News), and the BA Journalism (Introduction to News Writing; Reporting Conflict), as well as supervising PhD students and postgraduate and undergraduate dissertations.

James' particular areas of interest in international journalism are Russia and the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East. Much of his research has a historical focus, seeking to understand the way that history influences narratives and reporting of current events.
James especially welcomes PhD proposals related to these areas.

He is the author of four books on international affairs. His latest is 'Assignment Moscow: reporting on Russia from Lenin to Putin' (I.B Tauris, 2020; new edition published by Bloomsbury in May 2023).

James' next book, on Russia and the West, is due to be published in 2025 by Yale University Press.

Before entering Journalism academia full time in 2010, James was a journalist for twenty years. He spent fifteen years at the BBC, completing correspondent postings in Moscow, Brussels, and Gaza, as well as numerous other assignments. These included reporting from New York and Washington after 9/11, and covering the war in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.

In addition to his academic work, James still works as a journalist, contributing print, web, and broadcast work to news outlets in Britain and the United States. In the last 12 months, he has contributed to the BBC, NBC Think, Al Jazeera English, History Today, and The New European.

In spring 2020, he was awarded the John C. Hartsock prize for his article “Making Space for a New Picture of the World: Boys in Zinc and Chernobyl Prayer by Svetlana Alexievich,” published in Literary Journalism Studies (Vol. 11, No. 2, December 2019).

In May 2021, James was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, in recognition of his contribution to the discipline of History.

He has been a member of the Society of Authors since 2015, and a member of the National Union of Journalists since 1992.