Arts Scholars

Koi te hinengaro, koi te arero, koi te mahi!
Sharp of mind, tongue, and work!

Keep up with the latest discussions and thoughts from our Arts Scholars whānau

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History A, History B

Recently, while I was listening to a series of lectures on Herodotus, the lecturer distinguished between what she called History definition A and History definition B*. She also briefly mentioned the confusion caused when people do not realise which definition they...

Innovation in history: adapting war memorials

Innovation concepts can be used to promote different historical perspectives. In Peter Rachor’s lecture, I was asked how my research essay relates to some of the innovation concepts discussed. At the time, I had no idea what to say and said something vague and...

A Marxist Defence of Modern Conservatism

In too many ways, the Conservative label has been polarised to suit the unfolding narrative of political unrest in the Trump era.  A combination of Politics 106 lectures and a video article by the former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper provided an Enlightening...

War and Conflict’s Influence Upon Societal Reform

Change is an inevitable part of human existence, a fundamental component of our history that has so often been bolstered and revolutionised by war and conflict. Like change, conflict and by extension, war, are seemingly inevitable to our existence, events and ideas...

Perception

As Halloween recently passed, my mind shifts to the commodification of culture. Nowadays you can purchase anything from toy guns to real guns, and murdering video games to watching WW2 in colour. (Greatest Events of WW2 in Color - Netflix). I feel less as if war is in...

Conflict and Denial

In the week 3 reading on Wiremu Tamihana and the Mana of Christianity, Head argued that “[h]ow Christ was reflected in the colony … rather than faithfulness to the Treaty of Waitangi, was the tool of evaluation of British rule that Māori found meaningful.” When...

How to not contribute to ‘Orientalism’ and ‘othering’ in research?

Orientalism that Patrick consulted with in his research is really interesting to me. This bias toward Western knowledge in academia may often hide in plain sight. As he had noted that even his framing of the question, “Why Korean gay men do not come out?” is...

Life Experiences and Good Research

We’ve seen throughout the course so far that a research project can be on any topic, although it seems that a good research project is on that is in some way connected to life experiences. Patrick Thomsen had spoken in his lecture of the way his life experiences had...

The Undeniable Value of Experience

For me, Patrick Thomsen’s session was a reminder of the value of drawing on personal experience to shape research. Patrick’s ability to embrace his formative experiences and develop them into questions that would come to shape his research and its impact. Our lived...

Child Abuse: looking beyond the numbers in research

The discussion with Tracey McIntosh, Jemaima Tiatia-Seath, Nicole Perry and Carisa Showden was profoundly insightful; it made me consider power balances and inequities that had not even crossed my mind before. What stood out in relation to my personal research journey...

Addressing the Redress

Dr Stephen Winter's research into the process of redressing the abuse suffered by those in the care system in New Zealand was fascinating to look at. For a long time now, governmental care systems like orphanages have been something that I've been interested in,...

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Research is personal.

I've always been taught to keep as many confounding variables out of the data as possible - including myself, my views, thoughts, and opinions. But Dr Hirini Kaa and Patrick Thomsen told a different story. Their personal experiences guided them to their research...

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Lived Positionality

Dr Patrick Thomsen's lecture on examining the struggles of gay men in Korea through the lens of a pacific lens was quite the ride. The past year has instilled in me a curiosity about how varied viewpoints can be used to analyse different topics. I personally have...

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Collecting Notions

Collecting Notions

For a presentation last year, I researched Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey". You might also have heard of it as the "monomyth". If not, here's a simplified summary: the Hero's Journey is a sequence of plot points, which are said to loosely match every story we...

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Obscure War

Obscure War

We are very fortunate to be able to talk about war in theoretics. We are able to keep war at an antiseptic distance from ourselves, avoiding discussion of the “nasties” of conflict and, for the most part, live completely detached from the effects of war and conflict....

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History A, History B

Recently, while I was listening to a series of lectures on Herodotus, the lecturer distinguished between what she called History definition A and History definition B*. She also briefly mentioned the confusion caused when people do not realise which definition they...

read more
Perception

Perception

As Halloween recently passed, my mind shifts to the commodification of culture. Nowadays you can purchase anything from toy guns to real guns, and murdering video games to watching WW2 in colour. (Greatest Events of WW2 in Color - Netflix). I feel less as if war is in...

read more

Where do I go from here?

The first day of Arts scholars, I remember being perplexed when Sara brought in a Barbie in US army garb to discuss the gendered dimensions of war.    I called myself a feminist back then (and I still am). But it wasn’t really grounded in any sense of “academia,”...

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Politicians and the Media

Our discussions surrounding positionality have been great and allowed me to have a lot of self reflection. Following  Tova O’Brien’s recent interview with Jami-Lee Ross and the large positive reception it’s had, my thoughts turned to  positionality within the media. ...

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