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

Like what we do? Find out more.

What Can We Do About Today’s (and Tomorrow’s) World?

Sometimes I fall down the existential rabbit-hole. As a child, the world seemed relatively unproblematic. Politicians fought and made threats, but counteracting forces balanced them out. Scientists made new advances almost regularly. I always thought the world was...

War and Peace and All That Jazz!

Briefly, citing written academic articles in a post so entrenched in audiovisual mediums didn’t seem ‘hip’ as the Jazz cats would say, so I’ve also referred to various documentary clips of musicians performing and speaking about their music. Also I’d recommend reading...

The Fine Line

There is a fine line researchers walk when it comes to bonds with participants, one that I had never really thought too much about until the session with Tracey McIntosh, Nicole Perry, Carisa Showden and Jemaima Tiatia-Seath. Although I could not make the discussion...

Reflections on Internal Conflict during COVID-19

As coronavirus ravages through the world, I feel odd basking in inner peace. Solitude, and time with my family have left me with hours to enjoy the simpler pleasures that life normally gets in the way of. Picking out tomorrow’s lunch recipe with my family the night...

Is Old Enough Getting Old? Do Age Limits Promote Equality or Discrimination?

Jenifer Frost discussed how youth activism to lower the voting age emphasised education and maturity as well as disparities in their responsibilities, hence the phrase "Old enough to fight old enough to vote". This got me wondering about which age barriers could be...

The War Within: Creating New Soviet Men Out of the Women of the Leningrad Blockade

Fascinated by food as a basis and dimension of war and inspired by Sara’s mentioning a study finding women survived better than men during the blockade of Leningrad, I have been doing some reading on the event. Namely, I’ve been reading The War Within, by Alexis Peri,...

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...

Navigating the Researcher-Participant Relationship

This week’s discussion opened my eyes to the responsibilities a researcher must uphold when conducting an investigation. A prominent issue that caught my attention was the careful negotiation necessary when establishing a relationship between the researcher and the...

Serve Them Chocolate Hobnob

Reflecting on Stephan Winter's research readdressing historic abuse in Aotearoa, one question stood out to me, (or maybe it was the very appealing image of the biscuit on the slide) What biscuit to serve? When research is built around such sensitive topic, it can be...

“Hey Siri – Define Beauty”

Has the definition of beauty changed due to new technologies and resources? During early modern Europe, “Recipe books” were used as a step by step guide to reach beauty ideals. Dr Erin Griffey sourced over 400 recipes that focused on complexion alone. The extensive...

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...

read more
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...

read more

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...

read more

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...

read more
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,...

read more

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...

read more
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...

read more