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Biography
I started out as a student of Languages, Economics and Politics at Kingston, specialising in French and Politics and spending my third year completing the full final year programme of Sciences Politiques at the IEP Bordeaux. I then zoned in on contemporary theory, and took the MA Critical Theory in Nottingham in 1991-92, following this up with a thesis in French and Critical Theory on symbolic violence across the work of Georges Bataille and Jean Baudrillard. As this magnum opus neared completion, I was offered a one year post in University College Cork (1996-97), consolidating this in 1997, with a focus on the new Law and French degree, with latitude to roam French thought, and with sideline in visual culture (which I began teaching in 1997). I then arrived into Nottingham once more, as Chair of French and Francophone Studies on January 1st 2018.
Since the late 1990s, I have been researching, teaching, writing and sometimes even performing work based on theory of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. From a grounding (an ironic term for those in the terrain) in French theory, I began exploring contemporary visual culture, and how French art, theory, architecture and other visually-based phenomena have had global reach and impact. In parallel to that interest, I have pioneered thinking about noise - in musical terms, as cultural critique and as diagnostic theoretical device.
Since then, I have focussed more on sound studies, particularly in reference to noise. I have curated sound and art events in Ireland, in the UK, France and Sweden. I have worked with galleries and art organisations in Nottingham, London, and have longstanding international partnerships for music, sound art and art.
Since starting at Nottingham, I have been head of Modern Languages and Cultures (2018-21) and head of School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies (2022 to present).
Expertise Summary
My areas of interest, in rough hierarchy, are the following: French contemporary theory, visual cultural theory and practice, the audiovisual, noise, sound studies, noise, modernism, minimalism, decolonial global thought, economics in asset-stripped cultural forms such as music, speculative science, French and other theories of evolution, French experimental writing.
Teaching Summary
My teaching spans contemporary French thought, critical theory, contemporary visual culture and also ideas of audiovisuality.
in 2017-18, I have been teaching R12098 Surrealist Photography in France, teaching part of the visual culture element of R11026 Introduction ot French and Francophone Studies and seminars on R11019 France: History and Identity.
In 2018-19 I will be teaching R12110 Art and Visual Culture in France for the first time.
Research Summary
My principal research interests are French theory since the 1960s, contemporary thought, visual culture since the 1960s, audiovisual culture and sound studies. I have published widely in these areas,… read more
Recent Publications
PAUL HEGARTY, 2026. Technology as Noise. In: JØRAN RUDI and MONTY ADKINS, eds., The Routledge Handbook to Rethinking the History of Technology-Based Music Routledge. 198-209 PAUL HEGARTY, 2026. Sound Shelter: Ease of Listening as a Way of Dwelling Popular Music and Society. 48(1), PAUL HEGARTY, 2025. Jean Rollin and Terroir: Return to Les Raisins de la mort Nottingham French Studies. 64(2), 138-49 PAUL HEGARTY, 2023. Noise Not Music. In: MARK DELAERE, ed., Noise as Constructive Element in Music: Theoretical and Music-Analytical Perspectives first. Routledge. 72-85
I work closely with musicians to make 'noise music', inline with my written research. I perform in three groups: Maginot, Damp Misery, Power Acoustics. I have released numerous albums, and performed in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Greece, Germany, France, Sweden, USA, Canada, Malaysia, Kazakhstan.
I have curated numerous sound events, the most recent was a series on Japanese experimental music (late 2204 to mid 2025), in partnership with Cafe Oto, and with funding from the AHRC IAA scheme
Current Research
My principal research interests are French theory since the 1960s, contemporary thought, visual culture since the 1960s, audiovisual culture and sound studies. I have published widely in these areas, and seek to combine them, most notably in my writings on noise, which have appeared in Russian, Dutch, French, German and Japanese, as well as in English. I am interested in intersections of popular and avant-garde cultures, and also the fate of professional artistic activity today. This translates into writing about 'economies' of music, into running a vinyl record label, curating and performing. So, a significant proportion of my research is strongly embedded in the cultures it seeks to analyse. I have just published, with Sarah Hayden the first monograph on German minimal artist Peter Roehr (Dainmler/Snoek, 2018).
In 2020 I brought out my second book on noise, this time spanning numerous areas and connections to current culture. I followed that with re-writing my book on progressive rock (written with Martin Halliwell), changing the scope of our rethinking of that genre, and adding over 50 000 words. Since then I have been working on a book on smooth music, the antithesis of noise and experimental music. Or is it?
Past Research
I started out by exploring individual theorists in depth - most notably Georges Bataille and Jean Baudrillard. The ideas that emerged from the generation of thinkers in 1960s France remains massively and globally influential. I have expanded into ideas of decolonial globality, in line with my teaching on post-independent African countries, and following 21st century theoretical trends.
Future Research
I am currently completing a book in easy listening music and how technology eases listening. Overall I consider various genres since the 1950s acting in tandem with sonic and commercial technologies to be smoothing music. So what does smooth music sound like? what does it mean to try to make smooth music?
The book will come out in late 2026 on Bloomsbury
I am also working on the idea of 'artefactual sound', building on my research on a BA/Leverhulme small grant exploring the idea of 'francosonia' -the sounds of global French locations. The focus is to consider how colonizing European countries have defined,a dn continue to shape, a heterogeneous globality. I will also be looking into historical artifacts, computer contingencies (artefacts), histroical residues, ideas and practices of recording..