Overview
These events are timed to allow participants to attend Formal Hall afterwards.
Read more about the presenting students below:
- Thursday 9 May
Millie Race (PhD in Physiology, Development & Neuroscience)
"Building the (fish) brain: what studying the zebrafish brain can tell us about how cells build organs during embryonic development"
Abstract: During development of the embryo, cells have to organise themselves into complex structures to make functional organs. One of those structures is a hollow tube of cells, which is important in many organs like the brain, spinal cord, kidney and various glands. In my PhD, I use the embryonic zebrafish brain as a model system to study this tube formation. Specifically, I study how cells push and pull on each other and go from a solid rod of cells to a hollow tube filled with fluid.
Juliet Harrison-Egan (PhD in Architecture)
"Continuity and change in school design, South Africa"
Abstract: This research explores the role of school-spaces in post-apartheid South Africa. By examining change and continuity across three distinct periods of school design in Cape Town in relation to schools’ current lived reality, this research aims to identify architectural strategies which enhance the plural role of school-places.
Image: School site photograph taken during fieldwork in Cape Town, 2023
Lily Tekseng (PhD in English)
"Rogue Photographs: Excesses in State-commissioned War Photos in the India-Burma Theatre, 1941-1945"
Abstract: State-commissioned photographs of the India-Burma theatre were produced within the brackets set by the demands of the state. They were intended to be evidentiary supplements to projects-in-progress for official records and for purposes of public communication. But reading these photos vis-a-vis textual sources call to notice a ‘quieter’ (Campt) register of murmurings that is peculiar to these photos. They tell of the eye—of the creator of the photo and of the reader—that has gone rogue and escaped the brackets of state surveillance on archival posterity.
Image source: ‘Operations in Burma, Assam and North East India’, 1941, The National Archives, Kew, ADM 199/189
- Friday 17 May
Matthew Hayes (PhD in Zoology)"Banking on Butterflies"
Abstract: Can butterfly banks protect invertebrates from extreme weather events and rising regional temperatures? With climate change set to become the leading cause of biodiversity loss worldwide, this talk will explore simple management options that could help protect species into the future, as extreme weather events become more common.
Min-Kyoo Kim (PhD in Film and Screen Studies)"This Woman’s Work in the Nuclear Apocalypse: Testament, Threads and The Terminator"
Abstract: In this presentation, I explore the under-theorised and overlooked subjectivity of female protagonists in apocalyptic narratives of nuclear war. In particular, I reflect on the domineering presence of reproductive futurism – that is, the insistence on hetero-normative dynamics of the nuclear family – which obliges these women not only to survive, but to continue to protect and raise their children in the absence of other caring structures.
Adrián Rodriguez-Avila (PhD in Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic)"The Swedish/Gothic dichotomy in the consolidation of a Swedish identity"
Abstract: "The first histories of Sweden were written only until the 15th century. The birth of the Swedish historical tradition was, in part, a result of political pressures, which prompted historians to reflect and write about how Swedish identity was shaped in times immemorial. This talk will explore how the and why the Goths became an anchor to a legendary regnal continuum and how the Swedes became synonymous to a Christianised nation in three early histories of Sweden: Nicolaus Ragvaldi's Oratio, the anonymous Old Swedish Prose Chronicle and Ericus Olai's Office for the Patron Saints of the Swedish Realm."
- Friday 24 May
This postgraduate research soirée will be themed: New Research on Gender and Sexuality
Arbah Azhar (Phd in Divinity)"Exploring LGBTQ+ and Religious Identity Amongst LGBTQ+ Jews, Christians and Muslims: A Qualitative Study"
Abstract: This presentation offers insights from a qualitative study exploring LGBTQ+ and religious identity among LGBTQ+ Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the United Kingdom. Through in-depth interviews with six participants, the study reveals the intricate interplay between self-reflection, re-interpretation of religious scripture, and navigating LGBTQ+ and religious communities. Participants shared personal experiences of navigating religious holidays, confronting patriarchal beliefs, and seeking LGBTQ+-affirming spaces within their religious communities. The presentation highlights the complexities of balancing multiple identities and offers recommendations for future research to further explore the nuances of LGBTQ+ and religious identity formation.
Grace Batley (MPhil in Education)'The mask of masculinity: Northern Male identity formation in post-industrial towns'
Abstract: My research delves into the intricate landscape of masculinity, in areas of community collapse. It explores the repercussions of neoliberal individualism and the loss of the ‘working class hero’ mentality. When compiled with 40 years of increasing deprivation, it evaluates the ways the social and cultural norms in Barnsley have become out of sync. Focusing on how gender norms are experienced, reproduced, and manifested in power imbalances, it establishes the ways in which men navigate the performance of masculinity.
Sarah Dean (MPhil in Film and Screen Studies)"Trans/Formations: Emergent Aesthetics in Trans Autoethnographic Film"
Abstract: My research examines trans-authored autoethnographic works that portray trans experience. Where ethnography focuses on the other, autoethnography examines the self and community one emerges from. In employing the autoethnographic mode, trans filmmakers engage experimental aesthetics to produce visualities that explore the intimacies of trans experience. In analysing the aesthetic forms produced through trans autoethnographies, I consider how this mode may constitute a potent site for interrogating power dynamics, destabilising binaries, and the autonomous amplification of marginalised voices.
Batya Reich (MPhil in Education)"Theatre and Gender as Magic: Exploring Experiences of Gender Euphoria and Pleasure within Theatrical Performance"
Abstract: Attempting to conceptualize gender euphoria and pleasure, this research explores positive memories of gender experienced through theatrical performance. In conversation with transgender, cisgender, and nonbinary participants, I argue that theatre acts as a “magical” space that can be used to promote positive affirmations of gender and identity.
Barbara Wrona (MPhil in Film and Screen Studies)"Radical Pleasure: Subversive potentialities of a queer pornographic practice"
Abstract: My research looks at queer avant-garde pornography as an oppositional erotic practice which mobilises erotic aesthetics as means to explore the themes of sexuality, identity and politics. Tracing this tradition from the 1970s and the works of artists such as Andy Warhol and Barbara Hammer, this project investigates the role of queer theory and post-humanist feminism in the development of this genre into the XXI century.
Image from Barbara Hammer's Multiple Orgasm 1976
- Friday 31 May
Apolline Gouzi (Phd in Music)"Scores, receipts and legislations: The accounts of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears (1942-1976)"
Abstract: The case of Benjamin Britten is intrinsically linked to the emergence of queer studies. Philip Brett's first articles in 1977, a year after the composer's death, initiated a reading of the composer's works in the light of his sexuality, which until then had been completely silenced in the public sphere. This mainly analytical reading - in every sense of the word - placed the composer's music at the centre of the researchers' questions. It has, however, contributed to placing the material side of the couple's life outside the scope of queer studies by assigning it to the genre of biography. The invoices of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears provide an exhaustive inventory of the couple's consumptions, whilst also bearing witness to the strategies put in place to escape police control and incarceration. Based on an exhaustive study of Britten and Pears' invoices held at Aldeburgh's Red House, as well as police reports held at the National Archives, this paper examines the ways in which the couple negotiated the legislation of homosexuality.
Please contact the Senior Tutor if you would like to present your research at one of the upcoming soirées.
Details
This event is open to all, free to attend and there is no need to book.
Access
This event will take place in the Combination Room on the first floor of our main building. It has step-free access with a lift and there is an accessible toilet located on the first floor of the building.
