Felix Mantz

Background

I grew up in different parts of Germany before starting my undergraduate studies in the US. It was then that my interest in politics was ignited as I learned to study the modern international order and its global political economy from Third World, anti-colonial, and Indigenous perspectives. Concerned with the convergence of unprecedented crises afflicting this order as well as the different forms of injustice and violence they produce, I went on to complete my graduate studies at King’s College London and Queen Mary University of London. Prior to joining UH, I held research and teaching positions at SOAS University of London, the Free University of Brighton, and California State University San Marcos.

Education

• PhD, Political Science, Queen Mary University of London, 2023
• MRes, International Relations, Queen Mary University of London, 2019
• MA, International Political Economy, King’s College London, 2018
• BA, Critical Global Studies, Westminster University, 2017

Courses

• POLS 110: Introduction to Political Science
• POLS 305: Global Politics/ Comparative
• POLS 380: Environmental Law and Politics
• POLS 600: Scope and Methods of Political Science
• POLS 630: International Relations
• POLS 730: Seminar in International Relations

Research

My research is interdisciplinary, spanning across International Political Economy, Environmental Politics, Anti/Decolonial Studies, and Development Studies. I specifically work on the ways in which the global political economy, planetary environmental crises, and colonial structures of power are entangled. Drawing on a range of critical theories, especially anti/decolonial, anti-capitalist, anarchist, and Indigenous thought, I am especially interested in questions of land, socio-ecological liberation, autonomy, food systems, and extractivism. My teaching and research are based on a commitment to challenge oppressive systems of power and, as the Zapatistas would put it, recover, (re)build, and defend a world in which many worlds fit. Most of my work has a regional focus on East Africa and Mesoamerica.

Community Engagement

Knowledge, learning, and education are not property or commodities to be owned, sold, or leveraged to reproduce social hierarchies. They are relations and activities that are generated by society as a whole and thus belong to all. Between 2021 and 2023, I have worked with the Free University of Brighton (UK), a moneyless, autonomous learning space that seeks to make higher education free and accessible to everyone. Besides my academic publications, I have also written a series of public-facing articles which can be found, among others, in Global Social Theory, Discover Society, and E-International Relations (E-IR). I was previously Commissioning Editor for E-IR.