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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Useful or nah?

Stephen Winter's research is undoubtedly useful. When asked about how he became interested in his research on abuse, he answered because of its relevance. His research is immediately useful for the whole world. It is a live political issue, as there are still post...

Toughen up…

Throughout the power and inequity research panel, I noticed they recommended us to grow a “thicker skin.” While this is excellent advice, I’m dissatisfied. Within earlier lectures, many guest lectures were unable to give a satisfactory or specific answer as to how...

What Can Art Do?

Conflict has existed for almost as long as mankind has. Sometimes it erupts into war, sometimes into simmering problems under the surface, other times like an earthquake, with effects resonating across all kinds of people and over hundreds of years. All along these...

The War of Ideology

The mid-20th century saw the Cold War rise out of the ashes of the most destructive armed conflict in history, the hasty alliance brokered between two titans crumbling a mere two years after the fall of Nazi Germany. Yet, as the East and West fought to expand their...

Conflict in America and South Africa

As a first generation Kiwi, my parents grew up in South Africa with racial segregation, and it wasn’t something we ever talked about. It’s only now that we’re having these discussions; something that is crucial in a time of social change. While talking to my parents...

Revolution and Racism

I will be the first to admit that my knowledge of American history is sketchy at best. Joe Zizek’s lecture featuring the American Revolution truly brought this to light for me. Introduced to this Revolutionary War by the children’s book series, Judy Moody, Zizek’s...

War, Memory and Forgetting

Hi team! This popped up over the weekend on the history department FB page and I think it raises some interesting and important questions about war, memory and commemoration. And what we choose to focus on. Particularly relevant if you saw some of the clicheed news...

More Art Than Science

I may be biased, but the arts faculty…

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...

Kodak’s Little White Lie

‘All visions and stories and narratives come from bias.’ - Marcus Winter What are we as a culture if not a collection of widely understood images and narratives? After Marcus Winter’s lecture on his artistic practise of telling stories with sand, I wanted to...

Translation is Positional

Translation is a simple process, right? Take a word in one language, change it into the other language, repeat for the whole text. A tried and true method, except... obviously not, please don't translate things like that. Not even a closely related language, like...

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The World of Fantasy

The World of Fantasy

*content warning* mentions of sexual assault   After Brooke and Hela mentioned Percy Jackson and The Hunger Games during their (amazing!) presentations, it got me rethinking some of the books that I loved growing up, and the increasingly problematic aspects of...

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Like a Peacock

It's been a long year. The world has changed in so many ways in only a few months, yet things are still oddly the same. Time has blurred. Things that have happened only a week ago feel like old hat. Movements have progressed rapidly, and at the same time achieved...

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Tissues, please.

What does it mean to “weep in the archives”? For me, it means connecting emotionally with the history that is - or isn’t - documented. It means expressing empathy with a community or a person separated from you by a vast expanse of time. It means recognising that...

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Rogue One: A Non-Skywalker Story

Rogue One: A Non-Skywalker Story

The first time I watched Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, it was as a casual moviegoer along for the ride. I sat there just soaking in the action and cast chemistry and left little space for thinking about theme or cinematography. Four years and one video essay later,...

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Personal Histories

Personal experiences are a vital part of history. My memory project – interviewing my Grandmother about her memories of war – raised some interesting questions for me about different perspectives and memories of events. I have done a few research projects and...

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An infrastructure of feeling

An infrastructure of feeling

War and conflict are too impactful to be forgotten, even if they aren’t talked about and burrow down into the subconscious. In my memory project, I looked at this idea in relation to my family’s experience of World War Two and explored the consequences of silencing...

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