This event is the final phase of Processing the Pandemic: a multi-year series of seminars and symposia that explore how the experiences of the past may guide society’s emotional and social responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The series asks how we—as an open community of scholars, teachers, archivists, social workers, and practitioners—might learn from these experiences and from each other in transformative, inspiring, transdisciplinary ways. How can such dialogues reframe existing discussions around the history of emotions, our responses to trauma, and how we navigate from loss to hope? Moreover, how can the study of peoples’ responses to traumatic events in the past and present help guide our own experience of the pandemic and its unfolding future?

Professor Helen Wheatley, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures, Centre for Television Histories, talks about her research into television history. Her Ghost Town project takes programmes made in and about Coventry out of TV archives and explores how they captured the life of the city. Programmes from the television archive have been screened throughout the city, helping communities to learn about Coventry’s past and have conversations about its present and future. Find out more about the Ghost Town project: https://warwick.ac.uk/about/cityofcul...Link opens in a new window

For more than 150 years kings, queens and cardinals have been among the few people permitted to tread on one of Britain’s greatest treasures: a medieval mosaic foretelling the end of the world.

Made with rare marbles, glass and gemstones, the Cosmati Pavement in Westminster Abbey is the exact spot on which British monarchs have been crowned for centuries.

Days after the coronation of the King, the 700-year-old artwork will be opened to the public for the first time — on condition that they remove their shoes.

Professor Jennifer Alexander, an art historian at Warwick University, said the pavement tours would “certainly be a rare opportunity for the public to walk in the footsteps of medieval kings”.

She said it was “entirely fitting that they should be barefoot, as medieval pilgrims to St Edward’s shrine would have been”.

One of the key foci of research and research-informed teaching at the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies has been ‘creativity’ – who decides whether it is important and in what forms it takes, who gets to develop it and how, where it can be accessed and what kinds of creativity drive success and economic growth. So, we are delighted to see Dr Heidi Ashton’s research on arts education and culture in England, which she says has witnessed the emergence of two ‘systems’ of investment, appearing in The Guardian this week.

The Digital Humanities for Postgraduate Researchers certificate, which ran for the first time in 2022, saw the development and submission of an exciting range of digital research and teaching projects. Raad Khair Allah, a PhD candidate in the Department of English and Comparative Literary, used Miro to explore the "Marginalization of Arab Women and Revolutionising Patriarchy”. In this project she demonstrated how Arab women challenge patriarchal notions of gender in Arab Society through writing, film and visual arts. Her digital project is now reaching an international audience, having been a candidate for the Paula Svonkin creative art Award, and subsequently being published on the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) Arts matter 2022 website.

Professor James Poskett from the Department of History at the University of Warwick has had his book Horizons: A Global History of Science voted one of the best books of the year by BBC History Magazine.

In Horizons: A Global History of Science, James Poskett challenges the traditional Eurocentric narrative in a radical retelling of the history of science and celebrates scientists from Africa, America, Asia and the Pacific and the parts they played in this story.

Exhibition comprising self-portraits, photographs and personal narratives created and curated by people who have experienced - or are experiencing - homelessness in Coventry. Held in the foyer of the FAB, 3 - 27 October 2022.

Dr James Hodkinson from the School of Modern Languages and Cultures has been collaborating with Birmingham-based Soul City Arts on their latest project, Waswasa: a multi-disciplinary art show staged in an immersive setting at Birmingham Hippodrome, using real-life community narratives to explore the act of Islamic prayer and what that means in a modern, secular society.

Lead artist Mohammed Ali and his team aim to demystify this familiar yet misunderstood tradition through an extraordinary multi-media show that will challenge perceptions. The show relates deeply to people of no faith too, as we all struggle with achieving that higher state of focus with things like social media, technology and other distractions dominating our lives.

Thursday 25 Aug – Saturday 3 Sep 2022 at Birmingham Hippodrome

Part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival

Buy Tickets for Waswasa: www.bit.ly/waswasa

• Read more about Waswasa: www.soulcityarts.com/waswasa
• View the Waswasa Press Release: https://www.soulcityarts.com/waswasa-press-release

How do you find that elusive flow state? How can we focus in a world of distractions?

Join the conversation: #WaswasaShow #B2022Festival @SoulCityArts @AliAerosol @BrumHippodrome

The 1970s brought violence and fear to Chile.

On 11^th September 1973, General Pinochet’s coup marked the end of Salvador Allende’s presidency and the beginning of a brutal period in Latin American history. From Allende’s death until 1990, Chile was ruled by a military junta that carried out a program of persecuting alleged dissidents, in which over 3,000 civilians disappeared or were killed. During this period, almost 3,000 Chileans escaped political persecution, coming to the UK as refugees.

Professor Alison Ribeiro de MenezesLink opens in a new window from the School of Modern Languages and CulturesLink opens in a new window is studying the UK-based refugee effort and the experiences of those involved in order to address the fact that the stories of these particular refugees lack a more formal legacy (being largely absent from the collection of Chile’s Museum of Memory and Human Rights, for instance). In exploring the neglected experiences of this group, Professor Ribeiro de Menezes has devised strategies to share their story more widely as well as to approach the traumatic impact of this violent period in Chile’s history.

Students, staff and members of the local community are invited to the official opening of the Faculty of Arts Building (FAB) taking place at midday on Friday, 20 May. The opening ceremony, where a festive glass of fizz will be provided for all guests, will be followed by FAB Fest – a festival celebrating the arts at Warwick.