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.

Where’s the blood?

As I’ve been reading more about war, I keep on returning to that question posed in our very first lecture: where’s the blood? Going through the long lists of facts and statistics, it becomes easy to slip into this comfortable niche of studying conflict in a detached,...

The Problem with Perfect

Perfection. A myth. An unattainable goal. And yet, something so many of us strive for.   My first issue is the definition. In my opinion, every instance in which we deem something ‘perfect’, it’s a lie. The idea of perfection is completely unique within the mind...

A reflection on food, productivity and Positive Peace during quarantine…

Over the last few weeks, I have watched from my screen (and the sixth-floor window of my apartment building) as people have improvised and slowly adapted to our new reality, in a range of creative and exciting ways. Charles Allen’s lecture on Positive Peace made me...

More Art Than Science

I may be biased, but the arts faculty…

Revising Rosie: The Myth that Encompasses the Riveter

She dominates our perception of female empowerment – the face of modern feminism. Unfortunately, Our perception of Rosie the Riveter is doused in myth, distorting our view of feminist history …

What does good research and epic cake fails have in common?

Oh the glorious cake fail. Without you, google images would not be so nearly as enticing for the would-be procrastinator to make bad life choices. You are part hilarious, part instructive and part dream-destroying. But most of all, you stand testament to the harsh...

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...

Why did nobody write a love letter on a cuneiform tablet?

  Although simple and unassuming, cuneiform tablets, originating from the rich society of Mesopotamia, are the earliest known examples of writing. The earliest tablets were used for accounting and record-keeping, but as the society progressed cuneiform tablets...

Criminality and Understanding

On our museum trip, the exhibition that had the most impact on me was also the smallest: that between the Pou Kanohi gallery and the Spitfire, focusing on the lives of three men involved in airstrikes on German cities. These men killed civilians, and destroyed the...

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,...

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,...

read more
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...

read more