His work focuses on intersections between culture, politics, and technology. After completing his PhD in literature at the University of Glasgow, Julian taught modern and contemporary literature at the University of British Columbia and the University of Lisbon. He has written extensively about modernism and the avant-garde, with a particular focus on movements, networks, and manifestos, for publications such as the Journal of Modern Literature, Modernist Cultures, the European Journal of English Studies, Modernism/Modernity, and The Atlantic, and in a book, Key Concepts in Modernist Literature. Since joining M-ITI in 2013 his research has expanded to include design fiction, interactive storytelling, and other creative facets of human-computer interaction.