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 in the Media

I always wondered how conflicts were shown in the media overseas. This is because I used to watch the news and think about why we only got to see a certain perspective of the conflict. It usually is seen to make your own country look really good or make them look like...

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 Stories of Victims of Violence: Retellings of the ‘Iliad’

The last time I read Homer’s ‘Iliad’ was in my Year 11 Classics class, but it’s the text that first came to mind when Joe Zizek brought up the topic of how we should discuss past violence. The ‘Iliad’ may be of hotly-debated historical value, but it’s a story with a...

The Dominant Methodology isn’t Always Best: How Talanoa Re-framed my Education

Dr Patrick Thomsen's lecture early this semester stood out to me, for a number of reasons. His open attitude, his area of study, and, most significantly, his research method. Dr Thomsen collected his data through Talanoa, a Pasifika term derived from the words "Tatala...

Who Am I? A short, self-indulgent meditation on my internal struggle.

The past weeks have been a bit rough for me. The lockdown has stifled my self-esteem quite severely, and it’s left me floating without motivation or imperative. I did, however, find the energy to attend the Arts Scholars forum on power and inequality in research. I...

The nonphysical beauty

The coagulation of past Italian to modern day Italian lingistically was as necessary to upholding historical texts as it was to upholding beauty formulas to the beauty society. Imagine not being able to read or understand historic Italian because you only know...

An Ever Changing Song: An Anthem!

ANTHEMS OF CHANGE   What’s in an anthem? If you plugged the word ‘anthem’ into Google, you would perhaps one of the driest definitions I’ve seen yet: “A rousing or uplifting song identified with a particular group, body, or cause”. Coming first from religious...

Having a yarn not having a yawn.

Ok, so I’m about to summarise some truth handed down from Patrick Thomsen. So this man rocks up onto the stage and immediately I’m enthralled. Was he talking about a data set vaguer than UoA’s marking schemes? No. He came onto the stage and started yarning, chewing...

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...

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...

DISCLAIMER: Inspired by False Events

I love documentaries. Simple, narrated story-lines which require minimal attention from the viewer. They provide a fantastic (and frankly much needed) escape from everyday life. It's so easy to chill in bed with a laptop and binge an entire series, being able to relax...

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Kodak’s Little White Lie

‘All visions and stories and narratives come from bias.’ - Marcus Winter What are we as a culture if not a collection of widely understood images and narratives? After Marcus Winter’s lecture on his artistic practise of telling stories with sand, I wanted to...

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Violence and Legitimacy

Violence and Legitimacy

It is September in the year of our Lord 2020, and the world is ending once again. In the midst of our second stay away from university, (US)America has refused to go down without more high-profile cases of police brutality, bringing the Black Lives Matter protests...

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A New Perspective on the War on Drugs

        A lot of people think the war on drugs is an example of structural racism. They’re not wrong. Crack and cocaine are, chemically, virtually the same substance. However, crack is, due to its low price, used predominantly by black communities. Possession, the...

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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...

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Classics, classics, everywhere

Classics, classics, everywhere

Classical mythology has been consistently inspiring art and entertainment over the years for a nearly inconceivable amount of time. As a die hard classics student (and all around nerd), I am always excited to find new adaptations to these familiar stories and see just...

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The Evolution of Fairy Tales

The Evolution of Fairy Tales

  For centuries, the whimsy of fairy tales has been ingrained into childhoods. They are stories which have been told over and over with intentions to provide entertainment and hope. I still remember dressing up like a princess with friends for birthdays or waving...

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