Cultural Studies and Humanities good news March 2022

Publications

Jayne Raisborough, Katherine Harrison and Lisa Taylor have had a second publication from their British Academy Funded Project. Their work explores media representations of the undeserving poor in Austerity UK. Taking factual welfare programmes as their focus, they argue that existing analysis of how poor people themselves are represented, misses out other ways in which 'welfare stigma' is crafted. Cutaway shots to unmade beds, down toilet bowls and close ups of littered streets and abandoned mattresses on the street also play a role in encouraging viewers to made moralised judgements about the 'type' of people on social security. 

Access the paper here - The Cutaway to the Toilet.

Mel Chan’s Digital Reality: The Body and Digital Technologies, published by Bloomsbury is now out in paperback. Drawing upon existing scholarship around mobile media and new media, Digital Reality explores digital technologies as phenomena (observable items such as such as smart-phones, handsets, consoles, head-mounted displays and goggles) in the light of theories of reality and corporeality. In so doing, the book highlights the qualitative dimensions of our sense of aliveness, movement, and interaction within a range of environments (virtual, real, or hybrid). Ultimately, the book illuminates how our sense of shared, objective reality changes due to hybrid forms of reality.

Lisa Taylor published a piece 'The Healing Power of Art: strategies for mending a cleaved industrial community' in the ISRF Bulletin in February 2022. Using the idea of 'recovery' for thinking about how communities divided by the harms of de-industrialisation can begin to heal, she argues the £96 billion promised by the government's Levelling Up agenda is unlikely to do the granular work necessary to bring the two halves of Bailliff Bridge - a typical 'dormitory' ex-industrial village - together. Her piece illustrates how the collaborative art-making workshops with Catherine Bertola offer a model for respectful and convivial forms of community cohesion which act to commemorate the lost labour of carpet-making skills.

You can read the article here -'The Healing Power of Art: strategies for mending a cleaved industrial community' 

Research

Emily Zobel Marshall has recently returned from a very successful research trip to Trinidad where she conducted interviews for her Women in Carnival project and ran a day-long workshop. The AHRC funded research project was covered by the Trinidadian Newspaper Newsday for International Woman’s Day. 

Poetry

Emily Zobel Marshall has had two poems published in Stand poetry magazine, Vol. 19, No. 4.  This special issue focused on poetry by black and brown women writers and featured Grace Nichols and Rommi Smith, among others. It was edited by Malika Booker and Shara McCallum and is available to order here.

Animation release

Over the past year Emily Zobel Marshall has been working with Ted-Ed to develop a short animation on Anansi. Emily rewrote a traditional Anansi tale and created a resource pack aimed at school aged children. The story was animated by South African animator Keegan Thornhill. The animation is just over 4 mins long and has received 442 thousand views to date.

Watch Anansi here.