Faculty
Dr. Julien Paret
Assistant Professor & Director - Alliance Centre for Eurasian Studies & HOD - Political Science
Department of Language & Literature
Dr. Julien Paret is a versatile scholar and academic leader specialising in political and cultural studies, with a focus on global power shifts, intellectual revolutions, and the intersection of politics, culture, media, and technology. As Director of the Alliance Centre for Eurasian Studies (ACES) and Head of the Political Science Department at the School of Liberal Arts, he integrates political science, international relations, humanities, and emerging technologies to examine multipolarity, information warfare, cultural narratives, and geopolitical transformations.
Trained in France and Russia at Jean Moulin University Lyon 3, Russian State University for the Humanities, Sorbonne University, and INALCO, Dr. Paret’s research explores Russia’s strategic realignment toward the Asia-Pacific and its roots in Eurasianist political philosophy. A specialist in Soviet and post-Soviet subcultures, he investigates how underground movements, alternative media, and digital platforms challenge state narratives and ideological control. His current projects analyse the political and geopolitical significance of cultural artifacts—films, games, music—and their role in shaping social and political discourse.
Beyond academia, Dr. Paret is deeply committed to experiential learning and student engagement. As the faculty head of PoliticX, the student-led Political Science club, he fosters critical debates on global social, gender, and environmental justice, viewing it as a platform for youth empowerment and political awareness. As Co-Head of the Alliance Film Club, he guides students in exploring cinema as a tool of power, statecraft, resistance, and cultural diplomacy.
With professional experience in France, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Japan, Dr. Paret brings a global perspective to his leadership at ACES, where he develops research initiatives, international collaborations, academic-industry partnerships, and policy dialogues on Eurasian security, digital authoritarianism, and cultural power struggles in a rapidly evolving world order.
Areas of Expertise:
- Russia’s Asia-Pacific strategy & post-Western geopolitics
- Hybrid warfare, propaganda, and digital authoritarianism
- Soviet & post-Soviet subcultures, political resistance, and dissent
- Gaming, cinema & music as ideological and geopolitical tools
- Post-truth politics & the reshaping of collective narratives
- “Digital Barbarians at the Gates: The Shifting Figures of the Terrorist in Post-Soviet Eurasia through the Lens of Military-Themed Video Games.” Martin Claar & Clint Jones (eds.), Terrorism and Popular Culture: Teaching the Next Generation from the Cold War to Present. Lanham, Lexington, 2024.
- “Do Automatic Models Dream of Automated Truths? Robert Bresson’s Transcendental Cinema in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence.” Phalanx, Vol. 15, 2023, https://www.phalanx.in/pages/article_i0015_Do_Automated_Models_Dream_of_Universal_Truths.html.
- “Words at War: The Impact of Language on Perceptions and Representations of the Enemy in Russia-Ukraine War.” Close Encounters in War, Vol. 6, 2023, pp. 92-118, https://closeencountersinwar.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/paret-words-at-war.-the-impact-of-language-on-perceptions-and-representations-of-the-enemy-in-russia-ukraine-war.pdf.
- “Building Eurasia Outside of Eurasia: Russia's Strategic Interests in Southeast Asia and Their Implications for the EAEU and the ASEAN Within the Greater Eurasian Partnership.” Kuralay Baizakova, Yann Alix, and Pierre Chabal (eds). The Completion of Eurasia: Continental Convergence or Regional Dissent in the Context of ‘Historic Turns’. Lausanne, Peter Lang, 2023, pp. 513-525.
- “Cyberia: The Digital Monads of The Autobiographical ‘I’.” [« Cyberia : les monades informatiques du "je" autobiographique »]. Slovo, Vol. 47, 2016, pp. 91-112, https://slovo.episciences.org/3240/pdf.
- “The Revolution That Will Not Happen: The Ukrainian Left Between Two Conflicting Flows.” [« La révolution n’aura pas lieu : la gauche ukrainienne a la confluence de deux courants contraires »]. Sens public, Vol. 17-18, 2015, pp. 41-63, https://www.cairn.info/revuecahiers-sens-public-2014-1-page-41.htm.
- “The Impossible Parrhesia: Language Teachers' Discourse Strategies Between Production of Ideology and Ideology of Production”. KarGU Press, Karaganda, 2013, pp. 254-256.
- “Beyond Aul and University: The Eurasian Episteme of Education in Kazakhstan.” [Meždu aulom i universitetom: k evrazijskoj episteme nau?noj pedagogiki v Respublike Kazahstan]. KarGU Press, Karaganda, 2012, pp. 40-49.
