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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It’s a cutthroat business

Yes I googled ‘CEO stock photos’ what about it?

How Victors Shape History – Napoleon’s Rise and Fall

A sweeping golden cloak, pristine military attire and commanding a white stallion while staring directly into the viewers eyes as he points his army towards victory. That is how Napoleon Bonaparte is portrayed in the famous, Napoleon Crossing the Alps painting. The...

Politics Within Research

Many researchers may aim to keep a neutral political stance when conducting their investigations in order to prevent ‘bias’. Tracey McIntosh argues strongly against this goal. Within her research, McIntosh maintains that this is only another way in which unequal power...

Positionality and Polarisation in American Politics

I had never realised how vast the qualities used to define your identity could be until we talked about positionality in class. How certain experiences, family legacies, and interests are stacked upon one another and used to position ourselves in the world. Now...

On Brass Eye, post-truth, and the superiority of Arts Scholars

While the Science Scholars strive for accuracy in their research, we Arts Scholars one-up them by discussing why that accuracy is worth striving for; in arts-speak, we examine the ethical implications of certain discursive structures surrounding the production and...

The Hypocrisy of Social Justice in the French Revolution

To what extent does popular rule achieve social justice? Modernist scholars romanticize the French Revolution, where the common people rose and overthrew a corrupt establishment. A social pinnacle, where the foundations of feudalism and old order were torn up to...

The Bible and The Great War

God is on our side… right?

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...

dealing with your country’s colonial and colonized history

I believe it was Deborah who said, “history is thrust upon us and we’re expected to know it.” We learn in baby steps. We weren’t taught calculus at 13, we were taught linear algebra first. I wasn’t an immigrant six-year-old in ESOL studying Shakespeare’s use of iambic...

“The Templars have something to do with everything” or “The Propaganda of Conspiracy”

In Foucault's pendulum Casaubon and Belbo (our protagonists) move from mocking conspiracy theorists from a relative distance, to creating their own elaborate theory (still all in fun), to falling for it and bringing unforeseen consequences down upon themselves when...

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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