Lecture Explored Surveillance Studies in the 21st Century

13 March 2023

10 March, Dublin: Professor David Lyon, Former Director of the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, presented an engaging seminar on the topic of Surveillance studies at the Trinity Long Room Hub  Arts and Humanities Research Institute.

Prof. Lyon was joined by Dr. David Lewis (ADAPT Interim Director and Associate Professor at the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin), Dr. Ciara Bracken-Roche (Maynooth University), and Professor Aphra Kerr (Maynooth University).

During the seminar, Prof. Lyon spoke on the emergence of surveillance studies in the closing years of the twentieth century and how it became a transdisciplinary field in its own right within the twenty-first century. He also discussed how this flourishing transdisciplinary field of studies addresses not only issues raised by policing, prisons, and workplace management, but also surveillance surges prompted by 9/11 or pandemics, such as the most recent C19 pandemic. 

Prof. Lyon began in secularisation studies, and has been studying surveillance since the mid-1980s. A pioneer in the field of Surveillance Studies, he has produced a steady stream of books and articles, starting with The Electronic Eye (1994). The latest is Pandemic Surveillance (2022). He has led several large collaborative research projects on surveillance, with research funding totalling almost $8 million. His work has been recognised in Canada, Switzerland, the USA and the UK with a number of fellowships, prizes, awards and an honorary doctorate.

A recording of this event will be available shortly.