Speakers
ALI CLARKE
Surrey Hills Arts
Ali is Programme Manager at Surrey Hills Arts. She develops and leads projects that respond to this designated landscape, one of our national Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The adventurous programme of arts, events, installations and experiences is designed to connect people to the Surrey Hills landscape, its history, views and natural materials. www.surreyhillsarts.org
DR ALISON CARROL
Brunel University
Alison is Senior Lecturer in European History at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Brunel. She is the author of The Return of Alsace to France, 1918-1939 (OUP, 2018) and is interested in questions of nationhood, integration, borders and belonging in modern Europe. She is currently working on a long history of the idea of the Channel Tunnel, and is using the imagining of the Tunnel since its first proposal in 1802 as a case study to trace evolving ideas of connection and nationhood in France and Britain.
ANGELA SAWARD
Wellcome Collection
Angela is a Research Development Specialist (Moving Image and Sound) within Collections & Research at Wellcome Collection, London. Working with Wellcome’s unique and distinctive collections across many formats (but with a special emphasis on the audio-visual), she is Programme Lead for a strand of activity which supports internal stakeholders such as the exhibition curators, Policy and Digital teams.
DR ANNE CHAPPELL
Brunel University
Anne is Senior Lecturer and Divisional Lead in the Department of Education at Brunel University London. Her background is in education and sociology, with particular research interests in policy, professionals, students, and auto/biography. She has undertaken a number of research projects and published in areas such as teachers’ professional lives, the experiences of university students, and education for university staff. Anne is co-convener of the British Sociological Association (BSA) and co-editor of the recently published Palgrave Handbook of Auto/Biography.
DR ANNE WILSON
Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow
Anne combines a strong background in journalism and corporate visual communications with teaching and facilitating in academia. She is adept at creating compelling narratives from dry, obscure and technical subjects and is skilled at helping anyone - from Chief Executives to teenagers - tell their own story in an engaging and persuasive way. As a Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow, Anne runs bespoke workshops on writing, which consistently get excellent feedback. She uses her experience of competitive pitching to run a workshop on the art of grant proposal writing and works with academic staff on impact statement for the REF.
PROF. BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH
Poet and Musician
Benjamin was one of the pioneers of the performance poetry ‘scene’ in Britain. He was part of the ‘school’ known as the ‘Dub Poets’, these were poets that work alongside reggae music. He has spent most of his life performing around the world in schools, universities, concert halls, and in public spaces. His poetry is noted for mixing serious issues with humour and being accessible to a wide range of people. He is particularly interested in how poetry works in performance and its relationship to music. His recent releases include a music album called Revolutionary Minds, and his autobiography, The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah, which was shortlisted for both the National Book Awards and the Costa Book Award.
CAROL HUGHES
Techne Senior Administration Officer
Carol is the Techne Senior Adminsitrator responsible for funding and recruitment. She can advise on UKRI doctoral scholarships and on applying for Techne AHRC funding for placements. Before joining Royal Holloway, Carol worked for Bracknell Forest Council in Environment, Culture and Communities.
DR CATHY GOWER
Brunel University
Cathy is Head of the Department of Education at Brunel, a mum of two teenage boys, wife to a secondary headteacher, school trustee and grassroots football coach. After graduating as a PE and English teacher from the West London Institute of Education in 1992, Cathy taught in two local schools before re-joining Brunel in 1997 as a lecturer in PE. She has been a Programme Leader and Director of Initial Teacher Education before becoming Head of Department and is passionate about both pedagogy and research in teacher education.
DR CLAIRE LYNCH
Brunel University
Claire is a Reader in English and Irish Literature at Brunel University London. Her academic writing includes several articles and chapters on life writing topics and two books, Irish Autobiography (2009) and Cyber Ireland: Text, Image, Culture (2014). Claire’s life writing has been recognised by the Spread the Word Life Writing Competition (Highly Commended, 2017), Penguin Random House Write Now programme (Shortlisted, 2017) and the Hinterland Non-Fiction Prize (Longlisted, 2019). She has published a series of personal essays, including, most recently, in the Washington Post and on BBC Radio 4.
DR DANIELE RUGO
Brunel University
Daniele is an award winning filmmaker and Reader in Film at Brunel University London. About a War is his latest feature documentary. He is currently leading two projects, ‘Memories from the Margins’, on personal memories of conflict in Lebanon and Syria (www.memoriesmargins.com) and the international cluster ‘Performing Violence, Engendering Change’, (www.performingviolence.com)
PROF DAVID HOWES
Concordia University
David is a professor of anthropology (Concordia) and law (McGill) and the Co-Director of the Concordia Centre for Sensory Studies. He is currently heading a research project entitled “Explorations in Sensory Design.” Recent publications include Senses and Sensation: Critical and Primary Sources (Routledge, 2018) and “The Sensory Studies Manifesto” (forthcoming from the University of Toronto Press).
DR DEIRDRE O’NEILL
Lecturer and Filmmaker
Deirdre is a working class lecturer and filmmaker. Her book Film as a Radical Pedagogic Tool (2017) explores the way in which a radical pedagogy of film grounded in the realities of working class life provides a materialist understanding of how society is organized.
She is principle editor of a new publication Journal of Class and Culture and co-coordinator of the Inside Film Project http://www.insidefilm.org. She has co-directed three feature documentaries (with Mike Wayne), most recently The Acting Class (2017).
DR EMMA FILTNESS
Brunel University
Emma is Lecturer in Creative Writing (Academic Education) at Brunel University London. She is primarily a poet, but also works in prose fiction and narrative non-fiction, with a penchant for hybrid and experimental forms. Broadly her writing explores themes of heritage, migration and work, as well as gender, nature and place. Her current practice involves an exploration of found and visual poetics, including zine-making and mixed-media composition. Emma is also interested in writing for wellbeing in education and wider community-based contexts.
Twitter: @Em_Filtness
Instagram: @cultofflora
DR EMMA WAINWRIGHT
Brunel University
Emma is a Reader and Geographer working within the Department of Education. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on education, training and welfare-to-work; social housing; family, parenting and care; embodiment, body work and emotional labour. Her work has been funded through grants awarded by the ESRC, the British Academy, Barclays, the Learning and Skills Council, the Money Advice Service, and Brunel University London. Emma’s work has been published extensively with recent articles in Educational Review, Area, Physiotherapy, Theory and Practice, and Population, Space and Place. Emma is currently co-editor of the British Educational Research Journal.
PROF. ESTHER LESLIE
Birkbeck, University of London
Esther is Professor of Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck, University of London. Her books include various studies and translations of Walter Benjamin, as well as Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant Garde (Verso, 2002); Synthetic Worlds: Nature, Art and the Chemical Industry (Reaktion, 2005); Derelicts: Thought Worms from the Wreckage (Unkant, 2014), Liquid Crystals: The Science and Art of a Fluid Form (Reaktion, 2016), Deeper in the Pyramid (with Melanie Jackson: Banner Repeater, 2018) and The Inextinguishable (with Melanie Jackson) (EVA, 2020).
DR GUIDO BARTOLINI
Techne Alumni
Dr Guido Bartolini studied at University of Florence and University of Oxford and completed an AHRC funded doctorate at Royal Holloway University of London on the Italian cultural memory of World War II. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Italian Literature of the Axis War: Memories of Self-Absolution and the Quest for Responsibility (Palgrave Macmillan: 2021). He is currently IRC Postdoctoral Fellow at University College Cork (UCC), where he works on the cultural memory of Italian Fascism. Dr Bartolini is also Visiting Fellow for the IMLR Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory for which he curates the interdisciplinary seminar series ‘Mediated Memories of Responsibility’.
DR HANNAH WHITTAKER
Brunel University
Hannah received her PhD in African History from SOAS University of London in 2011. She subsequently taught African history at SOAS, before joining Brunel University London in 2013. Her research mainly deals with issues relating to colonialism, borders, and conflict in eastern Africa and she is the author of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Kenya, which was a finalist for the 2016 African Studies Association Ogot Book Prize. Hannah is currently working on a book project on the interconnected history of violence and development in twentieth century Africa. My teaching focuses on Africa’s global connections, the history of empire in Africa, and the history of violence in eastern Africa.
PROF. HARRIET HAWKINS
Techne Director
Harriet's research is focused on the advancement of the geohumanities, a field that sits at the intersection of geographical scholarship with arts and humanities scholarship and practice. Empirically she explores the geographies of art works and art worlds, theoretically she is interested in the elaboration of core humanities concepts of aesthetics, creativity and the imagination from a geographical perspective. Her current research focuses on the underground as a site of /for the formation of much needed new environmental imaginations. Collaboration underpins her research practice and alongside written research she has produced artist’s books, participatory art projects and exhibitions with individual artists and range of international arts organizations including Tate, Arts Catalyst, Iniva, Furtherfield and Swiss Artists in Labs.
DR HELENE ABIRAAD
University of Brighton
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HUW ROWLANDS
Techne Alumni
Huw's research brought a performance studies lens, specifically Diana Taylor's concepts of archive, repertoire, and scenarios, to historic cross-cultural encounters and later commemorations of them, taking Captain Cook's arrival in Aotearoa New Zealand as the inspiration for four case studies. Huw will submit before the end of 2020, and is currently applying for fellowships and jobs, and exploring other career options.
DR INGE DORNAN
Brunel University
Inge’s research focuses on slavery and the slave trade in British America and the Caribbean, with a strong commitment to public engagement. In 2019 Inge led a series of public engagement events in London on the theme of 'Unlocking the Secrets of Britain's Slave Past' as part of the UK Being Human Festival of the Humanities. In 2020, Inge received Brunel University London's inaugural Research Impact Award for Public Engagement. Inge is currently leading a new project working with London councils to explore the need for greater diversity of historical representations in the public realm.
JAICE SARA TITUS
Brunel University
Jaice is a doctoral candidate at Brunel university. Her research is in the areas of comedy, politics and psychoanalysis. She is also an editor at Everyday Analysis.
DR JASON ARDAY
Durham University
Jason is an Associate Professor in Sociology at Durham University in the Department of Sociology and the Deputy Executive Dean for People and Culture in the Faculty of Social Science and Health. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at The Ohio State University in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, an Adjunct Professor at Nelson Mandela University in the Centre for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation and a Trustee of the Runnymede Trust, the UK’s leading Race Equality Thinktank. Jason is also a Trustee of the British Sociological Association (BSA) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). He sits on the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS) National Advisory Panel and is a School Governor at Shaftesbury Park Primary School in London.
DR JOANA NEVES
Techne Alumni
Dr Joana P. R. Neves is an independent curator and writer, currently co-curator of the international touring exhibition Blank, Irma Blank. She is Artistic Director of Drawing Now art fair, Paris, and co-founder of Worlding International Studio Residency and Project Space, London. Her upcoming project is a book titled The Female Drawing Machine.
JO-ANNE SUNDERLAND BOWE
University of Roehampton
Jo has a degree in History and Archaeology at the University of Durham and has an MA in Cultural Heritage Studies from University College London. Jo-Anne is a Techne PhD candidate at the University of Roehampton (Media, Culture and Languages). Jo-Anne has a keen interest in exploring new research methodologies and creative practices in the museum and heritage sector, particularly around object-based learning and creative and critical thinking. She has extensive experience in the museum and heritage sector and works part-time at the British Museum which is also the site of her research study.
DR JOSEPHINE COLEMAN
Brunel University
Josephine is Lecturer in Media and Public Relations. Her first degree was in Geography from Cambridge. She has an MA in the History of Film and Visual Media from Birkbeck, where she also completed a practice-based PhD on producing community radio. Before entering academia, she worked in promotions and PR for independent radio, volunteered at community stations in the UK and the USA, and was a news journalist and presenter for BBC local radio. She is also publicity officer and former chair of the UK MeCCSA Radio Studies Network.
KIM WALKER
Royal Holloway/Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
Kim is a 3rd year Techne NPIF DTP student based at Royal Holloway and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. For over 300 years, quinine, sourced from the bark of the Andean Cinchona tree provided the only known treatment for malaria to the west. Based on the large cinchona collections within the Economic Botany Department at Kew, this collections-based research traces the networks of exchange, circulation of specimens, and key players in this story to shed light upon the development of this important medicine in 19th century Britain.
LAUREN PARKER
Museum of London
Lauren is Head of Creative Partnerships at the Museum of London, part of a team building a new Museum of London in West Smithfield. Since 2018 she has been responsible for instigating and delivering programmes, projects and partnerships that support the transformation of historic Smithfield into an extraordinary creative and cultural home for London and Londoners, and which help to test, shape and embody what the future Museum of London can become.
LIZ WILKINSON
The Careers Group
Liz is a Senior Careers Consultant at The Careers Group, with specialisms in postgraduate and academic careers and digital employability. Liz has 30 years’ experience in employability, graduate recruitment and HE. She has worked in 6 universities including UCL, Goldsmiths and Queen Mary, and when Deputy Director of Careers at King’s College London, she set up the targeted careers support for PhD students. She currently acts as the Senior Careers Consultant for the masters and doctoral students of the School of Advanced Studies, University of London as well as digital employability education lead for University of London Worldwide.
DR MAGALI PEYREFITTE
Brunel University
Magali is a Senior Lecturer in a Criminology/Deviance in the Department of Political and Social Sciences (Sociology, Media and Communications). As an urban studies scholar, she is interested in the way people experience space and place in the city. This is reflected in her methodological work which explores these questions through multi-sensorial and multi-media qualitative approaches. She has worked on a number of research projects using visual and creative methods to collect as well as disseminate data. Magali has published on both the theoretical and methodological aspects of her work exploring original and radical ways of researching the city.
MANI PILLAI
Brunel University
Mani has worked in financial services for over 17 years, across specialisms such as pensions, investment, insurance, private equity and fintech. She held senior corporate communications roles, where she oversaw and managed various corporate programmes including M&A, crisis, restructuring, launches and CEO transitions. She has worked for large, global companies and boutique outfits in the industry. In 2019, she started a doctoral research at Brunel University London, studying the career experiences and strategies of employees in the London insurance market.
DR MARCO BENOÎT CARBONE
Brunel University
Marco is a Lecturer in Media and Cultural studies at Brunel, Games Design Division, where he teaches media histories, cultural theory, and social research methods.
DR MEREDITH JONES
Brunel University
Meredith is a Reader in Sociology and Director of the Brunel Research Centre for Global Lives. She edits the Routledge series Gender, Bodies and Transformation. Her latest book, Beautyscapes: Mapping Cosmetic Surgery Tourism, won the 2020 Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness prize. Meredith's current work centres around vaginas and vulvas: see her article 'Expressive Surfaces: The Case of the Designer Vagina' for an example of how she's thinking about this. She is on the Advisory Board of The Vagina Museum.
OSMAN BAIG
Actor, journalist & playwright
Osman is an actor, journalist and playwright. His one-man show Fake News sold out at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe & was listed as Must-See by the Guardian & Telegraph, before transferring to London's Bridge Theatre in 2020. It is due to transfer Off-Broadway in 2021. As an actor, his other credits include Our Big Love Story for the Hope Theatre, Julius Caesar and Coriolanus for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Richard III for the Almeida Theatre and Ulysses Theatre, Croatia & Boy, also for the Almeida. Journalism includes roles at CNN, Sky News & Al Jazeera. Baig was formerly a George Viner Scholar at City University, after graduating in Law from the Universities of Manchester and Burgundy. He later trained at Drama Studio London.
PROF. PHIL POWRIE
University of Surrey
Phil Powrie is Professor of Cinema Studies and former Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences at the University of Surrey. He has been the Chief Editor of Studies in French Cinema since 2000, an AHRC Peer Review College member and an AHRC Strategic Reviewer.
DR SALLY-SHAKTI WILLOW
University of Westminster
While studying for her PhD, Sally-Shakti Willow co-developed and taught a series of workshops called Wellbeing While Writing for doctoral researchers at the University of Westminster. Wellbeing While Writing used practical techniques from Creative Writing pedagogy and wellbeing techniques from yoga & meditation to support PhD students of all disciplines with the work of writing their thesis. Since 2020 Sally-Shakti has developed this work through her business Writing & Thriving. You can find out more here: www.writingthriving.com/students. Sally-Shakti is also a poet, performer, copywriter, writing mentor and business & marketing coach.
SOPHIA SIDDIQUI
Institute of Race Relations
Sophia Siddiqui works at the Institute of Race Relations, an anti-racist educational charity that is at the cutting edge of research and analysis that informs the struggle for racial justice in the UK, Europe and internationally. She is the Deputy Editor of Race & Class, a quarterly journal on racism, empire and globalisation, and the co-ordinator of IRR News, an online news platform. She also writes on anti-racist feminism, both historically and in the present-day. Her most recent publication is ‘Anti-racist feminism: engaging with the past’ (Race & Class, 2019)
SUMMER PHILLIPS
Techne Student, Kingston University
Summer is a Creative Writing PhD student at Kingston University, London. Summer's work is a symbiosis of art and science, utilising a multi-disciplinary approach to ask key environmental questions arising from human perceptions of, and subsequent behaviours towards, non-human beings. Her current writing is a short story collection based on perceptions and creations of world: exploring the topics of speciesism and altered ecologies, all entangled around multi-universe theory.
Websites in progress: www.summermeadowphillips.com & www.speculativewild.com
PROF. THOMAS BETTERIDGE
Brunel University
Tom is an expert in English Reformation literature, and in particular medieval and Tudor drama on which he has published numerous books, chapters and articles. His most recent monograph is a study of the writings of Thomas More entitled, Writing Faith and Telling Tales: Literature, Religion and Politics in the Work of Thomas More. His research has also focused on the production of early modern and mediaeval plays, including mounted the first ever full-scale production of David Lyndsay’s play, A Satire of Three Estates, at Linlithgow Palace, Scotland (2013) and a production of The Masque of Augurs in the Banqueting House Whitehall in partnership with Historic Royal Palaces (2016)
TOM STOCKS
Actor, Writer & Producer
Tom is an award nominated actor, writer & producer. In his acting he has appeared in blockbuster films such as Blinded By The Light, critically acclaimed theatre shows such as The Greater Game & a host of commercials. He has just finished his show Netflix and Chill which he wrote, starred in and produced. This was also nominated for a standing ovation award by London Pub Theatres. He is also the founder of Actor Awareness a company fighting for equality, diversity and working-class talent in the arts.
DR SANJAY SHARMA
Brunel University
Sanjay Sharma is a Reader in Sociology and Communications at Brunel University. His work is of an interdisciplinary nature, drawing on cultural, media and sociological studies approaches. This research is located in the areas of racialization and difference, cultural politics and new media, which critically consider questions of representation, radical pedagogy, subjectivity and materiality. These interventions operate through thematics of 'critical race theory and 'technologies of race'. His work is concerned with bridging conceptual and political issues, especially in relation to the production of racialized knowledge and material culture.