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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The Eye of the Beholder.

Our second research seminar that was delivered by Erin Griffey and Victoria Munn explored beauty ideals from the Renaissance and how this might be reflected in art produced at the time. Their work involved translating historical beauty recipes from this period and...

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...

Mark Zuckerberg wants me to be sexy, and other lies I tell myself.

Erin Griffy and Victoria Munn: People wanting to be hot is the one constant across history. The end.   But actually though, everyone is ugly, even though we're not, we still think we are from time to time. It’s some messed up, warped up, f***** up part of the...

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...

Age is but a number

"[It] is not that 18-year olds are old enough to fight - it is because they are smart enough to vote." In Frost's lecture on the Youth Voting Rights Movement in America, this quote summarises Nixon's argument for lowering the voting age to 18-years old. As Frost...

Seasons change but people don’t, honey; suggestions on changing the unchanging human race

It’s not a secret political, racial, cultural conflict has been occurring for centuries. In the foray of my first 5 weeks of academia, I have never been more keenly aware of the recurring patterns of humanity. Xenophobia is at large in moments of historical importance...

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...

Diving deep

During Victoria Munn and Erin Griffey's research seminar, they discussed beauty in the likes of Renaissance paintings, reflecting the ever-growing importance of beauty within our society. Their work highlighted the importance of researchers developing a comprehensive...

The Ashes of Conflict: Reconsidering the Legacy of our Violent Past.

Throughout this course, we have been exposed to various legacies of the violence that has shaped our modern world. We have learnt of the violent nature by which our so-called "modern" nation-states have been constructed. We have learnt how revolutions have been...

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...

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...

read more
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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