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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Conflicts within the Good Book: How the Christian Bible Contradicts Itself

I have never read the bible.   I went to Sunday school with my friend Sianne, but more for the singing and lollies than the content of the sermon. That’s why doing Theology is so interesting. I’m plunging into the Christian world completely blind.   I was...

Redress: What Now?

Stephen Winter’s presentation on redress programs for those who suffered abuse while in state care piqued my interest because the history of the intersection of government and the underserved has been marred with suffering. In the past, those who were unlucky enough...

Mission Trips and Cross-Cultural Research

"If heroism is driving your mission trip, stay home." 1 Power and inequity are uneasy themes that dictate life for people across all sub-sections of Aotearoa. Our in-class panel discussion regarding how these two topics are treated in cross-cultural academic research...

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...

Passion and Practicality

Something I appreciated immensely about Erin and Victoria's session was their ability to give such direct advice when presenting a somewhat abstract topic. Erin holds a passion for her beauty works that has allowed her to structure a clear and functional research...

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...

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...

Framing BLM

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and the murder of George Floyd have united the world against systemic racism and police brutality. Like many historical events, the framing of revolutionary movements is important in preserving the authentic message. Joe’s lecture...

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...

Setting the Bull Free

For any of you who have heard me speak for more than five seconds, you would know by now that I am the self-proclaimed "biggest, fattest Taurus" you’ll ever meet in your entire life. I’m stubborn, opinionated and I can’t bear to be told that I'm in the wrong. What can...

Gender and War

When we talk about war, so often it is in terms of the male soldier or male head-of-state. When women are mentioned, it is often in the lumped phrase ‘women and children’. As we’ve progressed through this term, it has left me wondering: where are the women?  Simply,...

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Hated in our Nations

Hated in our Nations

Spoilers  for episode 6 of season 3 of Black Mirror below.  Civilian casualties are as common as they are condemned. Numbers remind us that governments, be it democratic or authoritarian, kill large numbers of civilians as a military strategy. In his lecture, Thomas...

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Labels and Positionality

Labels and Positionality

Of all the sessions we had this year, one of the most impactful for me was Dr. Madhavi Manchi's session on research positionality. She answered a lot of the questions that I didn't know had been at the back of my mind since I started my Arts degree, the core of these...

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