Cultural and Media Policy Studies News and Events

We are saddened and shocked to report that on 23rd November 2016 Dr Anna Upchurch passed away, following a short illness. Anna was a Teaching Fellow in the Centre through 2008/2009, teaching on the MA in International Design and Communication Management, before moving to Leeds where she continued to work until shortly before her death. In 2008 she completed her PhD in the Centre, a study of the intellectual origins of the Arts Council; the book resulting from that research, The Origin of the Arts Council Movement was published in the same week as her death. Anna continued to be a friend of the Centre, working with colleagues on research projects, editing a book series for Palgrave Macmillan with her former colleague and friend Dr Ele Belfiore, and participating in the International Conference on Cultural Policy Research.

Anna was an imaginative and empathetic historian of cultural policy, a gifted teacher and a warm, kind-hearted colleague who brought the best out of everybody she worked with. It is a tragedy that her life and career should be cut short. Those of us who knew her will remember her with deep affection, for her generous, open spirit, the interest and care she showed towards her students, and the warmth and kindness she both embodied and inspired. Anna will be greatly missed by her friends and colleagues at Warwick, as well as by the many students, colleagues and friends who were lucky enough to meet her and work with her, at University of Leeds, at Duke University and around the world. If any former students would like to get in touch to share their memories of Anna, we would be happy to pass these on to her family.

The Centre for Cultural Policy Studies warmly invites you to our second research seminar of the term.

On Tuesday 29th November at 5pm-6.30pm in G50 of Millburn House we will be welcoming Dr. Tom Mills, lecturer in Sociology at Aston University and author of The BBC: Myth of a Public Service (Verso, 2016), to give a paper entitled 'The Structural Transformation of the BBC'. Abstract below.

Refreshments will be provided. Please e-mail Paula Watkins on p.watkins@warwick.ac.uk to reserve your place.

The first of the Centre for Cultural Policy's Research seminars this term will be on Thursday 27th October 5pm-6.30pm in G50 Millburn House.

Dr. Jonathan Ong from the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Leicester will be presenting a paper entitled Digital Sweatshops in the Disaster Zone: Precarity and Opportunity in Techie Aid Work.

Abstract and bio below.

You are warmly invited to join us. Wine and nibbles will be provided. Please e-mail p.watkins@warwick.ac.uk to confirm your attendance.