Arts Faculty News

The Widening Participation team and the Faculty of Arts have been awarded over £26,000 by the Research England Enhancing Research Culture Fund to create a Social Mobility Student Research Hub over the next six months. The principal aim of the project is to create a Hub to improve access to, and participation in, research, for students from currently underrepresented groups, including those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, care leavers, and refugees.

To achieve this aim, the project will fund up to twenty students from underrepresented backgrounds to design research projects exploring issues around social mobility, Widening Participation (WP), diversity and inclusion. Undergraduate and postgraduate taught students will be given the opportunity to design these research projects in groups or as individuals, supported by postgraduate research students who will be recruited to act as mentors.

Further details will be available towards the end of the month from Damien Homer. Damien.Homer@warwick.ac.uk

Professor Susan L. Carruthers' new book explores romantic life in wartime, how and why relationships break down, and the consequences for men and women in uniform, through the phenomenon of the “Dear John” letter, that most notorious of wartime missives.

Amphibious Screens: The Sustainable Cultures of Water Seminar Series, hosted by The University of Warwick, begins on January 27th. This online series delves beneath the surface to connect new research ideas from around the world with professionals, practitioners, activists as well as the cultural sector in four online seminars.

You can join one or all of these free seminars to understand more about how the film and TV industries in Miami, Reykjavik, Cornwall and Venice are deeply connected to a watery sense of place, water pollution, water scarcity and water cultures.

For further details and to register click here.

This month’s Resonate Festival theme asks the question, ‘What does it mean to be human’? Dr Martha McGill, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History, discusses historical beliefs about supernatural beings and how these shaped the ways that our ancestors thought about their own humanity.

Want to hear more? Sign up for 'Invisible Worlds - Humans and the Supernatural', taking place as part of the Resonate Festival on Thursday, 24th February, 6:30-7:30pm at Canley Community Centre, CV4 8FT.

A recent webinar is available to watch on the Future of Fashion. Join Rachel Sandby-Thomas, Registrar, and a panel of academic and alumni experts, including Professor of Global History and Culture, Giorgio Riello from the Department of History, to gain an insight into the world of fashion and retail through the lens of artificial intelligence and rich data, and learn more about the future of this globally-influential sector.

• The Digital Arts Lab - showcasing creative digital practices in the Faculty and beyond, exploring innovations, and dreaming-up innovations;
• Technology-Enhanced Active Learning - supported tools and techniques for teaching, with an emphasis on making learning active and engaging;
• Digital Humanities - showcasing and supporting the use of tech in research in the Faculty.

We will be joined by experts from across the University and beyond, including key people from central services (IT, AV, Space Management, Academic Tech, Library). Our next FAB Digital Wednesday will be #UnboxingTheFAB teaching spaces on 12th January. This will include "space walks" to explore the building, and a drop-in support session. Watch this space for more information.

Tying in with the Food GRP’s programme of events for this month’s Resonate Festival theme of ‘Feast!’, in this video Professor Rebecca Earle discusses the history of mulled wine and other Christmas drinks. Grab a glass and hear how these drinks have been part of Christmas celebrations over the centuries!

In the latest Faculty of Arts at Home video, Dr Paul Grigsby discusses Coventry’s ancient history, tying in with the Resonate festival’s theme of ‘Coventry in the World’ for November. Dr Grigsby uses the history beneath our feet to explore how Coventry has been a place of continual cultural change since prehistoric times, using archaeological evidence to trace how people from around the world have come to this diverse city.

As countries around the world come together to tackle the threat of climate change at the COP26 climate summit, the question of how cities can become more sustainable has never been more important. Tying in with the Resonate Festival’s theme of Futures, Dr Jonathan Clarke in Global Sustainable Development discusses what some of the key challenges are for transforming our cities to become more resilient, equitable and sustainable to adapt to our changing world.