Katharine Millar is an Assistant Professor of International Relations in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics.
Her broad research interests lie in examining the gendered cultural narratives underlying the modern collective use of force. Dr. Millar's current book project examines the relationship between support the troops discourses and gendered, normative citizenship in the US and UK during the early years of the so-called Global War on Terror. It outlines a theory connecting gendered notions of political obligation with the transformation of civil-military relations, and the normative use of violence, in contemporary liberal democracies. Her other on-going research examines gender, race (particularly whiteness), militarism, and contemporary populism(s); gender and cybersecurity; and the politics of hypocrisy. Dr. Millar has also published on female combatants, gendered representations of violent death, military and civilian masculinity, and critical conceptions of militarism.
Dr. Millar is also researching the relationship between grief, mass death, and social order in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. She holds a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant for the project "The Challenge of Mass Death for Transnational Social Order: Experiencing COVID-19" for 2020-2022.
Dr. Millar is a member of the Millennium journal Board of Trustees, and belongs to the Friends of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security (formerly the Steering Committee) at the London School of Economics. She has participated in consultation processes regarding the UN's Women, Peace, and Security Agenda for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the NATO Defense College and the NATO Defence Education Enhancement Project (DEEP). Dr. Millar has frequently been recognised for Inspiring Teaching in the LSE Students' Union student-nominated teaching awards.
Read an interview with Dr Millar from the LSE Leading Women series.
Previously, Dr. Millar was at the University of Oxford, where she held a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada doctoral fellowship at Somerville College, and lectured in Politics at St. Anne's College. Before entering the academy, Dr. Millar worked as a policy researcher for a major Canadian political party. She holds a Masters of International Studies from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland, and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.