Barney has taught on the Liberal Arts and Social Sciences modules at King’s Foundations since 2021. He has previously lectured and led undergraduate and postgraduate modules in English Literature, Film Studies and Culture and Communication at the University of Essex, City (University of London), Roehampton University and University of Middlesex. In a previous career he has a 10-year experience of working in music education in schools.

Barney’s first book, Desert Islands and the Liquid Modern (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), examined representations of desert islands in radio, print and screen advertising, magazine cartoons, television comedy and drama, cinema, and video games. This was based on his PhD studies at the University of Essex, where he was supervised by Marina Warner and Jeffrey Geiger.

Current research interests include student engagement in foundation teaching and learning and ideology in popular culture. Publications include:

• ‘Resisting Metaphor: A Phenomenology of Cold and Heat in Pincher Martin.’ Shima (14) 1 (2020): 30-46. https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.14.1.05.
• ‘Crossing the Sand: The Arrival on the Desert Island.’ In Spatial Modernities: Geography, Narrative, Imaginaries, eds. Johannes Riquet and Elizabeth Kollmann, 87-102. London: Routledge, 2018.