Roehampton's Postgraduate Community

“Crossing Boundaries” Conference Programme Announced

hollygiesman — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 07:37:24 +0000

Full programme announced, including PhD student presentation abstracts.

“Crossing Boundaries” Conference Performers Confirmed

hollygiesman — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 07:34:26 +0000

‘impromptu: for Yolande’
Performance by Jean LEE (MA Student—Dance, Roehampton University)
Improvisation has different meanings in different cultures. In some cultures, it is for introduction, education, or creation but in others, it is both the result of the highest perfection and for everyday pleasure. The piece ‘impromptu: for Yolande’ is dedicated to people who have passed through the Portrait Room.

Korean choreographer Jean LEE and Roehampton University dancers collaborate with Estonian composer Elo Masing.

‘Yugo Yoga: A Path Towards Socialist Self-Realisation Through Movement’
Video Performance by Lara Ritosa Roberts (Performance Klub Fiskulturnik)
‘Yugo Yoga’ is a performance that fuses elements of communist public sculpture, Russian Constructivism, socialist realist propaganda, exercise broadcast, fiskultura and yoga. An amalgam of ‘Yugoslavia’ – the country of my birth that no longer exists & ‘yoga’ meaning ‘the union’, the performance is an attempt to communicate the complexities of Eastern European cultural identity and it’s global resonance. The language of communist heritage and revolutionary jargon, didactic body culture and the visual pomposity of mass rituals and monuments are presented to the contemporary viewer raising issues of compliance, alienation and belonging.

Embark on a meditative journey of socialist self-realisation! Increase flexibility! Gain moral strength! Reduce social tension! Practice Yugo Yoga daily!

‘Crossing Boundaries’ Conference: New Keynote Panelists Confirmed

hollygiesman — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:44:01 +0000

Elisabeth Bogdan
Art and Business, Sotheby’s Institute of Art
Lis Bogdan is senior lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London where she teaches design and architectural history across a number of its arts MA programmes (principally, on its MA in Contemporary Design), and runs a successful professional development programme in Art and Business. A career as a valuer and researcher in the Canadian auction world preceded her MA in History of Design at the Royal College of Art. She thereafter taught at the University of Wales Institute-Cardiff, Oxford Brookes University, and for eight years, on Southampton Institute’s (now Solent University) BA and MA in Fine Arts Valuation degrees, before becoming full-time faculty at Sotheby’s Institute in 2004. Her specialist teaching includes eighteenth- to twentieth-century European and American design, decorative art and
architectural history; her research and writing focus is on Canadian design, and on the Canadian art market. As Sotheby’s Institute’s Academic Quality Liaison with the University of Manchester (the Institute’s validating body), she has a significant role in developing discipline benchmarking, and
pedagogic frameworks.

Dr. Ernst Fischer
Drama, Theatre and Performance, Roehampton University (Research Fellow)
Born and brought up in Munich, Germany, Dr. Ernst Fischer studied chemistry, social work and puppetry and was a member of the Freies Theater München for two years. After relocating to London in 1979 he obtained an Honours degree in Performing Arts at Middlesex University (1986), an MA in Drama and Theatre Studies at University of London, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (1991), as well as a diploma from the Ivor Spenser International School for Butler Administrators (London, 2001) and a PhD at Roehampton University (2003). Actively involved in theatre and performance making for more than three decades, he has been involved in body/live art, queer performances, Butoh, acting, mime & physical theatre and socially engaged presentations. In general terms, he is concerned with issues of belonging, domesticity and homeliness, and his work seeks to explore how people occupy as well as ‘uncannily’ disrupt a variety of spaces – from their own bodies to social conventions and political/ideological systems. More recently he has collaborated with exiled writers and asylum seekers on issues relating to race, diversity and human rights. His publications include Writing Home:
Postmodern Melancholia and the Uncanny Space of Living-room Theatre (2001) and Playing with Fire (2007).

Professor Isabel Santaolalla
Spanish & Film Studies, Roehampton University
Isabel Santaolalla’s research falls within the field of cultural studies. She is interested in gender and ethnicity, migrations and diasporas, transnationalism, postcolonial theory and criticism, particularly as applied to the cinema. Her earlier work focused on literature and cinema in English-speaking countries (e.g. ed. “New” Exoticisms . Changing Patters in the Construction of Otherness, 2000), later moving on to Spanish cinema, e.g. Los “Otros”. Etnicidad y “raza” en el cine español contemporáneo, (2005), and The Transnational in Iberian and Latin American Cinemas (co-editor, 2007). Her most recent research project focuses on the cinema and the Saharawi people. As part of this project, a team from Roehampton carried out in May 2009 an audiovisual workshop in Dakhla, one of the Saharawi refugee camps in South Western Algeria (www.justmessaging.com). She has also (co)organised a number of academic conferences and film festivals (e.g. the annual ‘London Spanish Film Festival’ at Ciné Lumière, or the forthcoming ‘6th European Psychoanalytical Film Festival’, at BAFTA, London), and is part of research networks such as the AHRC-funded ‘Migrant and Diasporic Cinema in Contemporary Europe’ or the ‘Centre for Research into Iberian Stage and Screen’.

“Crossing Boundaries” conference updates

hollygiesman — Tue, 04 May 2010 12:43:27 +0000

This interdisciplinary conference provides an opportunity to reflect on cultural globalisation and its effects across the arts and humanities. Roehampton University research students will present papers on a variety of arts and humanities topics past and present, supported by performances to help illuminate the conference theme. Keynote panelists from a wide range of disciplines will speak on the theme as well as feedback on issues raised in the student papers and performances.

Join us as we explore new research in the arts and humanities and foster network-building among students and researchers across London and beyond. All are welcome to attend free of charge. Register now to secure your place.

Conference poster

Updates will be available on our Roehampton University webpage.

Contact the conference organisers for more information or leave feedback here on the blog.

Conference Organisers:
Diego Arboleda (Theatre) – dadelobra@gmail.com
Sophie Carney (Art History) – carneys11@roehampton.ac.uk
Holly Giesman (Film & Television Studies) – holly.giesman@roehampton.ac.uk
Claudio Nazareno (Film & Television Studies) – nazarenc@roehampton.ac.uk

“Crossing Boundaries” Call for Papers Details

hollygiesman — Sun, 02 May 2010 20:32:15 +0000

As mentioned, we have extended the submission deadline for 200-word abstracts for the Crossing Boundaries conference by one week. The new deadline is Friday 7th May. Complete details can be found in the PDF file linked below.

CFP Poster

An update, and some important names

Diego — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:39:42 +0000

Greetings, fellow scholars:

This has been a busy week for the organizers of the conference. The reason? The natural complications that arise when trying to develop an academic event, of course. Just imagine it, dear readers: the writing of general e-mails to the students of the School of Arts, the establishment of contacts with potential speakers, the creation of a structured schedule … it’s an exciting academic activity, necessary for the creation of hopefully memorable day of exchanges . Among the decisions taken, the most important is the extension of the call for papers: instead of today, April 30, the deadline will be in a week, on Friday 7^th of May. So, busy but interested students, pay attention! This is your opportunity to finish your abstract and send it to us. Remember, its extension should not be more than 200 words. So go ahead, and good luck!
In addition to this update, today’s posting aims to introduce you to two teachers and one performers that have already confirmed their presence. Our main purposes are to recognize the diversity of their career, find the meeting points in their seemingly disparate fields of study, and –naturally– give the necessary publicity that their importance deserves. Here there are three short presentations, resumed from the material found in the linked websites:

Professor Suman Gupta – The Open University (http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/english/gupta.shtml). Professor Gupta studied at the Universities of Delhi and Oxford. A specialist in Literature and Cultural History, he’s the Principal Coordinator of the Globalisation, Identity Politics and Social Conflicts Project. He was Joint Director of the Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies of the Open University Arts Faculty, and coordinated projects on contemporary Indian English publishing and the Nigerian moving picture industry. He is coordinating at present a project on “English Studies in Bulgarian Higher Education”, and hopes to develop a larger project on English Studies in non-Anglophone contexts extending also to Romania, China, Morocco and elsewhere soon. His publications include Marxism, History, and Intellectuals: Toward a Reconceptualized Transformative Socialism (1999), Re-Reading Harry Potter (2003 and 2009) and Globalization and Literature (2009). Professor Gupta is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow of Roehampton University.

Dr. Avanthi Meduri – Roehampton University (http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/staff/AvanthiMeduri/). Dr. Meduri is a graduate of the Tisch School of Arts, New York University, where she obtained her PhD in Performance Studies. She has carried out archival and ethnographic fieldwork in India, the US and the UK, examining dance from cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary perspectives. As a Ford Fellow, and Academic Director of the Centre for Contemporary Culture, New Delhi, Meduri curated the Rukmini Devi Arundale (1904-1986) photo-archive. Trained in Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, two classical forms of India, she works with theatrical and choreographic projects that explore the intersections between academic theory and practice, and locates her performance work within the intellectual framework of what is known as ‘practice as research’ in higher education. In 2005, she joined the dance team at Roehampton, and helped in the conceptualization of the MA Cluster Programme, including creating a global arts pedagogy for South Asian theatre forms, recognized as an area of excellence in the recent RAE.

Dr. Aba-Carina Pârlog – University of the West, Timişoara (Romania) Pârlog Aba-Carina is a lecturer at the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Letters, History and Theology, West University, Timisoara. She teaches courses on postmodern/ contemporary literature and translation studies at graduate and post-graduate level. She published the books The Clash between Body and Mind: Orwell, Beckett and Durrell, West University Press, Timisoara, 2006, the result of her PhD thesis, and Translating the Body (joint work), Lincom, Munchen, 2007. She took part in many national (and international conferences and published dozens of articles in the filed of literature and translation studies at home and abroad.

In a future post we will present the trajectory of the rest of our keynote panelists and performers, indicating their artistic and academic achievements. Similarly, once the call for papers is closed, we will inform through this medium the different backgrounds of our beloved panelists. Until then, if you have any questions, go ahead, contact us or leave here a comment!

Happy Bank Holiday!

Here we go!

Diego — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 14:53:15 +0000

First post. Hard task. What to say, how to present with the appropriate elegance something that hopefully will live a long and prosperous life? Better to be honest and brief, and say with an open heart: welcome, welcome everyone! This is the beginning of Roehampton University’s Postgraduate Community blog. The name is perhaps too long, too technical; the page completely generic. But the intentions are good, and if everything goes as planned, this site will grow into something special, a space open to reflections, friendly discussions and surprising discoveries. That will depend on how much you, fellow postgraduate student, help us you make it better every day.

There is, of course, a trigger that explains this sudden burst of collectivism: the School of Arts Conference “Crossing Boundaries: Humanities, the Arts, and the Impact of Cultural Globalisation”, which will take place in the Portrait Room, Groove House, Froebel Collegue, on June 15th, 2010. Its scope, as you might have noticed, is deliberately wide, and it could be generally described with a two-word concept: intercultural exchanges. This comes from an interesting discovery of the organizers: how seemingly different investigations, in fields such as documentary filmmaking and media politics, are somehow realted in the study of the constant and sometimes difficult dialogue between different societies in our globalised world. It is a rich and relevant theme that has been analyzed by artists and academics alike; following this trend, “Crossing Boundaries” will approach it through a multidisciplinary approximation, combining academic lectures, short artistic performances and a keynote panel of experts. Hopefully it will be an exciting opportunity for everyone involved; a first step in our wish for a constant communication between the Postgraduate students.

That’s why this space cannot be considered only as an unsubtle advertisement of a forthcoming event. On the opposite, this blog aims to become a point of reference for all Roehampton postgraduate students; a space to cure the wounds of rejected papers and the desperation of seemingly never-ending corrections. So, if you want to send us anything, from a Youtube link that you think might be useful for other investigators to a brief resume of your work, feel free to do it! Here we are, ready to give you support and a fair amount of friendly criticism

Soon there will be new and exciting updates. Till then, check more details about the conference in http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/news/events/june-2010/Crossing_Boundaries.html or the poster below. If you’d like to participate, send us your abstract before the 30^th of April. We will be very happy to hear from you!

“Crossing Boundaries” Conference Committee:

Diego Arboleda: arboledd@roehampton.ac.uk

Sophie Luisa Carney: carneys11@roehampton.ac.uk

Holly Giesman: holly.giesman@roehampton.ac.uk

Claudio Nazareno: nazarenc@roehampton.ac.uk