Pea Arts About

21/01/17 Tonight, I met the sort of person I want to teach, or not so much teach as to help foster and facilitate their wonderful ideas. I was in a quiet but public space marking undergraduate essays on my little laptop and a young fella entered the room. I looked up, smiled, said ‘Hi’, and carried on. After a few moments, he asked if I was writing a script. To make sure I heard correctly and wasn’t imagining being mistaken for a screenwriter, I said, ‘Sorry?’ and he repeated. Was I a writer, was I writing a script? I said I had no such luck, that I was marking essays. He said he likes writing scripts. He’s not very good, but he loves it. He asked me if drafting made them better, and I said yes and elaborated on why I thought that and what strategies might help. He asked was I an English teacher. I said no, I teach film.  ‘I love film!’ he exclaimed. He said it was his favourite thing and he’s really passionate about it. He talked about his admiration for The Sil

I originally put this blog post together a while ago for another site, but it is highlighting women in STEM rather than the arts and humanities just now, and I thought it might be useful to share it here. This case study forms part my larger discussion on moving image production concerning memories of imprisonment in post-conflict Northern Ireland in Old Borders, New Technologies: Reframing Film and Visual Culture in Contemporary Northern Ireland .

During my PhD research in and on Northern Ireland I was privileged to spend time with a wide range of people who would identify with the nuanced levels of victimhood associated with the NI conflict, or at least those nuances which tended to be acknowledged by academics and critical thinkers. The conversations I had with these people were not directly to do with my research. They were not interviews, and were never recorded, but have impacted on me as memories I carry and give me the motivation to keep working. I don’t know how, but people seem to be comfortable talking to me, and I like to listen when they do because you never know what you'll learn. Two instances in particular have stayed with me. In early 2010, I organized a research seminar with Tom Magill, director of the Belfast-based Educational Shakespeare Company , and we screened MickeyB , an adaptation/cultural translation of Macbeth made in collaboration with serving prisoners of HMP Maghaberry. After the event

My 20s were horrible. Absolutely horrible. There were good moments: gigs, people, movies. There were achievements that sound great: earning three degrees and publishing a scholarly monograph. There were moments of defiance: reaching breaking point and walking out of my horrible job at Tesco. But my 20s also involved surviving abusive relationships (not necessarily always romantic ones) and pushing myself literally to the point of collapse because of the dangerous climate of academic pressure - if you're not working yourself to the point of illness, you're not doing enough.  Surviving these sorts of things may seem positive, but they take their toll. My 32-year-old self is rather resentful towards my twentysomething self for the signs of ageing, the damage, the anxiety, the lack of confidence, the fear, the diminished resilience that have only worsened in a life lived beyond my control.  'Take back control' is a phrase in English that will go down i