Tristan Sturm is Senior Lecturer in Geography at Queen’s University Belfast.

He also researches apocalyptic thought related to climate change, conspiracies, and religious movements in the USA and Israel/Palestine as well as critical health geopolitics, specifically COVID-19 conspiracies and lead pipe infrastructure. He has published over 30 academic articles and has disseminated his findings in the Toronto Star, Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, National Post, THE Magazine, Journal.ie, BBC radio 4. His work has been cited in the New York Times, Mother Jones, Toronto Star, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, among other journalism spaces. He is currently finishing a book entitled, The Future is a Foreign Country: Christian Zionists and Landscapes of the Apocalypse in Israel/Palestine and is co-editor with Jason Dittmer of Mapping the End Times.

Editorial boards:

American Review of Canadian Studies 

Politics & Governance

He was the SNBE SWAN Co-Champion (2016-2019), the local UCU branch secretary (2017-18), and School Climate Literacy co-Champion (2018-2019). He is currently School University Staff Forum rep (2018-present), School Wellbeing rep for EPS faculty (2020-present), and Geography 1st year coordinator (2019-present). 

He currently supervises 4 PhD students: Megan O'Kane (ESRC), Tom Albrecht (ESRC), Dan Webster (DFE--completed), and John Erwin. 

He is interested in researching and supervising students on these related topics:

1. Critical public health geographies: lead exposure, COVID-19, and conspiracies

2. Political geographies of religious movements

3. Apocalyptic thought related to climate change, conspiracism, and nationalism

EDUCATION

Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Teaching (PGCHET), 2015-2016 Queen’s University Belfast

Ph.D., Geography, 2006 – 2011 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

Lady Davis Doctoral Fellow, Geography, 2008 – 2009 Hebrew University of Jerusalem

M.A., Geography & Environmental Studies, 2004 – 2006 Carleton University

B.A., Geography w/ honours & distinction, 2001 – 2003 University of Victoria

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor), Queen’s University Belfast.Geography, 2019 - present

Lecturer (Assistant Professor), Queen’s University Belfast. Geography, 2015 – 2019

Assistant Professor, York University. Geography, 2012 – 2015.

SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow and lecturer, University of British Columbia. Geography, 2011 – 2012.

Sessional Lecturer, University of California, Los Angeles. Geography, 2008, 2010 – 2011.

PUBLICATIONS

Edited Books

Flood, N. and Sturm, T. (2021) Tracing Belfast’s Water: new materialist interventions in infrastructure and design. Queen's Architectural Press. pp. 112. ISBN: 9781909731066

Dittmer, J. and Sturm, T. (eds.) (2010) Mapping the End Times: American Evangelical Geopolitics and Apocalyptic Visions. Farnham, UK: Ashgate/Routledge (2015), 266 pp. Pbk/Hbk.

[Contributors: William E. Connolly, Paul Boyer, Simon Dalby, Michael Barkun, Ju Hui Judy Han, Ethan Yorgason, David Jansson, Hannes Gerhardt, Carolyn Gallaher].

—Reviewed in: Journal of Church and State; Geopolitics; Religious Studies Review; Canadian Geographer; AAG Review of Books.

Edited Journal Volumes

Lynch, R., Sturm, T., and Webster, J. (2021) “The apocalyptic and other crisis.” Special Issue of Anthropology and Medicine.

Sturm, T. (ed.) (2013) “The Future of Religion and Geopolitics: Towards a Theory and Research Agenda.”Special Issue of Area, 45(2), pp. 134-69. [Contributors: Fiona McConnell, Elizabeth Olson, Janette Habashi, Nick Megoran]

Struckman, L. and Sturm, T. (eds.) (2013) “Contemporary Geopolitics in the Middle East.” Special Issue of The Arab World Geographer. 16 (1), Pp. 3-145 [Contributors: Karen Culcasi, Mark Drury, Luke Struckman, Christine Leuenberger, Ron J. Smith, Timur Hammond].

Akcakaya, I., Goldstein, J., Lustig, N., Pfeiffer, D., Sturm, T., and Youn, E. (eds.) (2010) “Resilient Cities.” Special Issue of Critical Planning, 17(1), pp. 4-181.

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Flaherty, E. Sturm, T. Farries, E. (2021) The conspiracy of Covid-19 and 5G: Spatial analysis fallacies in the age of data democratization. Social Science & Medicine. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114546

Sturm, T., Mercille, J., Albrecht, T., Cole, J., Dodds, K., and Longhurst, A. (2021) "Interventions in critical health geopolitics: Borders, rights, and conspiracies in the COVID-19 pandemic." Political Geography. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102445

Sturm, T. & Albrecht, T. (2021) “Hal Lindsey: Apocalypse, Geopolitics, Climate Change.” In Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements. Bedford: CenSAMM.

Erwin, J. and Sturm, T. (2021) "Living in the Wake of Rural Irish Troubles: Building an Institution for Sustainable Peace Through Emotive Out-of-Place Tourism." Journal of Sustainable Tourism. DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2021.1912055

Boland, P., McKay, S., Sturm, T., Gale, R. (2021) “Planning for Religion: An Analysis of Northern Ireland’s ‘Super-Church’”. Religion, State, and Society. DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2021.1909448

Sturm, T. and Lustig, N. (accepted, mid 2021) “Variegated Environmental Apocalypses: Post-Politics, the Contestatory, and an Eco-Precariat Manifesto for a Radical Apocalyptics”, in Earl Harper and Doug Specht, Imagining Apocalyptic Politics in the Anthropocene. Routledge.

Sturm, T. (2021) “God’s Just Gaza War: Futurity Foreclosed through Evangelical Apocalypse as Orthogonal Promise of Eretz Israel”. Geografiska Annaler: Series B., 103(3). DOI: 10.1080/04353684.2021.1891557

Lynch, R., Sturm, T., and Webster, J. (2021) “Apocalyptic futures: Morality, health and wellbeing at the end of the world.” Anthropology & Medicine, 10.1080/13648470.2021.1888548.

Flood, N. & Sturm, T. (2021) “New Materialisms: Harnessing collaboration to understand the spatial consequences of complex matters of public concern.” In Bridging the Gap: Emergent Ideas on Architectural Pedagogy and Practice. Routledge. 

Sturm, T. & Albrecht, T. (2020) “Constituent Covid-19 apocalypses: contagious conspiracism, 5G, and viral vaccinations”, Anthropology & Medicine, DOI: 10.1080/13648470.2020.1833684

Sturm, T. (2020) “Hal Lindsey’s geopolitical future: towards a cartographic theory of anticipatory arrows.” Journal of Maps, DOI: 10.1080/17445647.2020.1819902

Farries, E. and Sturm, T. (2019) "Feminist legal geographies of intimate-image sexual abuse: Using copyright logic to combat the unauthorized distribution of celebrity intimate images in cyberspaces." Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. 51(5) 1145–1165. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X18786964

McConnell, T., Sturm, T., Stevenson, M., McCorry, N. K., Donnelly, M., Taylor, B. & Best, P., (2019) Co-producing a shared understanding and definition of empowerment with people with dementia. BMC Research Involvement and Engagement. 5:19, pp1-11.

McConnell, T, Best, P. Sturm, T, (2018) “A translational case study of empowerment into practice: a

realist evaluation of a member-led dementia empowerment service.” Dementia: The International Journal of Social Research and Practice (Sage). DOI: 10.1177/1471301218814393   23pp.

 Sturm, T. (2018) “Religion as Nationalism: The Religious Nationalism for Israel of American Christian Zionists.” National Identities, 20(3), 299-319.

Sturm, T. (2017) Christian Zionism as Religious Nationalism Par Excellence. Brown Journal of World Affairs, 24(1), 7-22.

 Sturm, T. (2015) “Political Geographies of Religious Movements” (Chapter 15). In J. Agnew, J. Sharp, A. Secor, and V.D. Mamadouh. Companion to Political Geography, 2nd Ed (pp. 352-365). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

 Sturm, T. (2015) “Theorizing Religious Nationalism: The Case of American Christian Zionist National Allegiance to Israeli Territorial Maximalism.” In S. Brunn (ed.) The Changing World Religion Map (pp. 819-839). Berlin: Springer.

 Sturm, T. and Frantzman, S. (2015) “Religious Geopolitics of Palestinian Christianity: Palestinian Christian Zionists, Palestinian Liberation Theologists, and American Missions to Palestine.” Middle Eastern Studies, 51(3) pp. 433-451.

 Sturm, T. (2013) “Geography and Popular Culture.” In B. Warf (ed.) Oxford Bibliographies in Geography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (11,800 word review w/ 116 citations)

 Sturm, T. (2013) “The Future of Religious Geopolitics: Toward a Theory and Research Agenda.” Area, 45(2) pp. 134-40.

 Struckman, L. and Sturm, T. (2013) “Interrogating Conventional Geopolitics of the Middle East.” The Arab World Geographer, 16(1), pp. 3-9 (first article).

 Sturm, T.(2012) “The Immanence of an Imminent Apocalypse: Christian Zionists and Israel as the New Redeemer Nation-and-State.” Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception, 2(2), pp. 333-341.

 Sturm, T. (2011) “The Free Gaza Flotilla and the Christian Zionist Response: Territory, Media, and Race.” Human Geography, 4(1), pp. 10-22.

 Sturm, T. and Oh, E. (2010) “Natural Disasters as the End of the Insurance Industry? Scalar Competitive Strategies, Alternative Risk Transfers, and the Economic Crisis.” Geoforum, 41(1), pp.154-163.

 Sturm, T. and Bauch, N. (2010) “Nationalism and Geography: An Interview with Rogers Brubaker.” Geopolitics 15(1), pp. 185-196.

 Sturm, T. and Dittmer, J. (2010) “Introduction: Mapping the End Times.” In J. Dittmer and T. Sturm (eds.),Mapping the End Times: American Evangelical Geopolitics and Apocalyptic Visions. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, pp. 1-23.

 Sturm, T. (2010) “Imagining Apocalyptic Geopolitics: American Evangelical Citationality of Evil Others.” In J. Dittmer and T. Sturm (eds.), Mapping the End Times: American Evangelical Geopolitics and Apocalyptic Visions. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, pp. 133-154.

 Sturm, T. (2008) “The Christian Right, Eschatology, and Americanism.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 26(5), pp. 929-934.

 Sturm, T. (2006) “Prophetic Eyes: The Theatricality of Mark Hitchcock’s Premillennial Geopolitics.” Geopolitics, 11(2), pp. 231-255.

 Sturm, T. (2015) “Introduction,” to book review forum of Justin Wilford’s (2012) Sacred Subdivisions: The Postsuburban Transformation of American Evangelicalism. New York: New York University Press. Social and Cultural Geography. 16(2), 371-372. [Contributors: Elizabeth Olson, Pervin Banu Gokariksel, Justin Tse, Nicolas Howe, Claire Dwyer, Justin Wilford].

Sturm, T. (2008) “Critical Methodological Geopolitics: Discourse Analysis/Ethnography.” Geopolitics, 13(3), pp. 600-609. (book review essay)

Selected Op-eds

Albrecht, T. and Sturm, T. (2021) “It's no coincidence that some of those storming the US Capitol were New Age conspiracists.” The Journal.ie. Jan 13

Sturm, T. (2018) “Academics’ families are suffering from high UK visa costs.” Times Higher Education (THE Magazine).

Sturm, T. (2017) “The end of the world is coming – just not this Saturday.” The Conversation (republished in the National Post), 20 September. [https://theconversation.com/the-end-of-the-world-is-coming-just-not-this-saturday-84323].

 Sturm, T. (2013) “Feast of Tabernacles Conference: The Christian Zionist Lobby Has Returned.” Palestine Chronicle. Tues. 24 Sept. [www.palestinechronicle.com/feast-of-tabernacles-conference-the-christian-zionists-lobby-has-returnedf/#UkIREWJE3Jt].

 Sturm, T. (2012) “Anxious Apocalypticism, Meaningful Millennialism.” Rabble. Fri 21 Dec. [http://rabble.ca/news/2012/12/anxious-apocalypticism-meaningful-millennialism].

 Sturm, T. (2012) “Christian Zionists Support Israel’s Risky Policy Decisions.” Jerusalem Post. A 15, Tues. 2 Oct. -Republished at CounterPunch. 8 Oct. 2012[http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/08/christian-zionists-back-israels-risky-policy-decisions/].

 Sturm, T. (2011) “The Day After the Rapture.” Toronto Star. A15, Sun. 22 May.[http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/995005].

 Sturm, T. (2009) “Bible Politics and Palestinian Zionists.” Haaretz. B4, Fri. 25 Sept.  [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1116943.html].

Interviews

Robertson, D. (2017) “Millennialism and Violence?” The Religious Studies Project Podcast, 22 May. [http://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/podcast/millennialism-and-violence/].

 Marshall, J. (2015) “Blood Moon and Prophecies.” BBC Radio Newshour, 27 Sept. 8:06PM: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0331bxw (34:44 - 38:15)

 Ross, O. (2014) “When Good Fences Can Make Bad Neighbours.” Toronto Star. A1, Mon. 6 Jan. [http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/01/06/when_good_fences_can_make_bad_neighbours.html].

 Bompan, E. (2010) “Intervista con Tristan Sturm: I nuovi crociati” [The New Crusaders]. Left Avvenimenti. 26 March, pp. 45-47.

Recent Book reviews:

Sturm, T. (2021) Review of "S. Jonathon O’Donnell's Passing Orders: Demonology and Sovereignty in American Spiritual Warfare" (Fordham University Press)". Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/passing-orders

Sturm, T. (2021) "Review of Kotef, Hagar (2020) The Colonizing Self : Home and Homelessness in Israel/Palestine. Durham: Duke University Press." H-Net.

PhD: Tom Albrecht (2017- ) 1st Supervisor: “Global Climate Change Policies in

American Christian End-Times Theology”. ESRC Funded.

PhD: Megan O’Kane (2017- ) 1st Supervisor: “The Geopolitics of Fallout.” ESRC

Funded.

PhD: John Erwin (2018- ) 1st Supervisor: “Illuminating the Dark Tourist Gaze in Ireland

through Emotions, Involvement and Immersion.”

PhD: Dan Webster (2017- ) 2^nd Supervisor: “Ad Space”. DFE Funded.