From 2014 - 2016 Dr Preti Taneja travelled around the world to document the productions, performances and reception of people making Shakespeare in translation of form and language in response to contemporary conflicts, and in post conflict zones. Her case studies include two productions lead by the actor and director Nawar Bulbul, who developed two performances with Syrian children caught in the conflict: one of King Lear in Za'atari refugee camp on the Jordan/ Syrian border, and one of Romeo and Juliet in Amman, Jordan and Homs, Syria via Skype. From this fieldwork Dr Taneja won a Leverhulme research grant; one output she is developing is a multimedia interactive website to allow users to virtually take the place of the researcher and experience the challenges of subjectivity in fieldwork, of working in translation, and exploring an ethical approach to research impact first hand. In this seminar, Dr Taneja will present the website and candidly discuss her research approach and process in collaboration with her translator Zeena Faulk. Attendees are invited to come prepared with any questions about working on human rights work, field work, ethics of working with children, translation and interpretation; and about how to think through presenting research ethically as well as for impact. The majority of the session will be given to questions.

Dr Preti Taneja is an award winning writer and activist. Her debut novel WE THAT ARE YOUNG won the 2018 Desmond Elliot Prize for the UK's best debut and was listed for several international awards including the Prix Jan Michalski, Europe's premier award for a work of world literature. It was named one of the top 10 Books of the Decade in The Hindu newspaper and has been translated into seven languages to date. Preti has over a decade of experience as a minority rights researcher for major NGOs and her academic research is on cultural rights in conflict and post conflict zones.
From 2017-19 she held a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship at Warwick University, and was the UNESCO Fellowship in Prose Fiction at the University of East Anglia. In 2020 she will be writer in residence for TIDE (Travel, Transculturality and Identity 1500-1700) at the University of Oxford. She also teaches creative writing in HMP Whitemoor for Learning Together, University of Cambridge.