Pea Arts About

It is a year and a day since I last posted. I had just begun working as a Teaching Fellow in the University of Aberdeen. What a year 2013 turned out to be. I designed and coordinated an Honours course on Cinema and the American Avant-garde, and taught on the Introduction to Visual Culture and Cinema and Revolution courses. There were personal and professional difficulties, but I made the most incredible friends anyone could hope for, and learned so much about teaching, learning, and life. The six months flew in all too quickly, and I moved back to Belfast at the end of June (just in time for marching season, of course). I'd have liked to have travelled a bit, but Aberdeen is an expensive city to live in and I knew I wouldn't have income again until November as I had been offered a similar full-time fixed term position at Queen's, so back to my ma's it was. What a summer. I had decided to save my earnings and eke them out until I was working again rather than sign on. ...

I’m settling well in my fixed-term post of Teaching Fellow in Film and Visual Culture. The teaching load is heavy, the days will be manic, and I’m raring to get cracking. We’re covering some great material with which I am very comfortable, and am becoming happily reacquainted with Deleuze’s Cinema texts. The PhD has done something to my brain, reading Deleuze gives me such joy now – what a difference from the frustrated grappling during the MA. Hopefully I can help my second year undergraduates get a decent grasp of him. With only four full-time staff (including brand new short-term me), teaching for the department this semester, we are stretched, but shaping up to be a crack team. There will be little time for our own research endeavours. The commissioning editor for my monograph is happy for me to push my deadline back and make producing the manuscript my summer project. I have major revisions to do on an article that came back from peer review due in March. Considering I threw...

Just a personal note on the passing of 2012. As most of my friends know, the first ten months of this year were not kind. The challenges were many and pervaded every area of my life. Without getting into specifics, there were times when I did not know how, or if, things could improve. With unrelenting support from a lot of people, I kept at it, kept working, kept trying, kept taking and acting on generous advice, kept taking comfort from reminders of the strong support network that has formed around me for the past number of years, and - as some of the members of that network promised - things got better. My thanks to them is to return that support in kind. Postgraduate study is a glorious yet arduous path to take in life, particularly if you expect it to provide a career for you. Hard work, determination, grit, being adaptable, and a bit of luck finding the right 'fit' (for you and employer), among other things, are how you might  get a foot in the door. I find not keeping c...

Wow, my poor neglected blog! This is just a quick update, really to keep it resuscitated and put out there what I am currently up to. Kind of more of a speedily written diary entry... I have had the wonderful delight of being named the winner of publisher Peter Lang's Young Scholars in Film Studies 2012 Award, the prize for which is the publication of my thesis as a monograph. My baby is coming to life. Slowly. I want to make it really good and ensure that it reads as a book rather than a PhD thesis, but am up against the REF2014 clock, so am responsive to all advice on this matter. Haven't quite stepped into the process yet, though. Trying to get the last few weeks of this semester's teaching preparation out of the way and respond to some interesting and highly relevant conference CfPs first. This has become much easier since resigning from my job in a shop, explained by an earlier post. The book contract changes the game and I am determined to go full throttle at trying...

*DISCLAIMER: I am writing about the film with an approach to critical analysis with only a hint of review, therefore there are spoilers within if you have not seen the film. This post serves as a line of thought that I am archiving for later development.* It appears that reviews of Shadow Dancer (Marsh, 2012) have not been entirely complimentary, as far as I am aware (I am deliberately avoiding them so feel free to correct me), and seem largely to have been written by men. The film is much more than critics and general commenters deem it to be (e.g. one I came across stated that this is yet another Troubles film making the IRA out to be scum). Shadow Dancer does not attempt to depict the Northern Ireland conflict through a microcosmic narrative, rather it draws out a suppressed individual struggle within patriarchal organizations, and in doing so attempts to reflect the hidden lives many were forced to lead. The most striking aspect of Shadow Dancer for me is its evocation ...

Following a miscommunication between myself and the editor of a cultural magazine who commissioned me to write an article about Culture Night, said article looks set to be significantly truncated and fragmented. The magazine is distributed throughout the nine counties amounting to the province of Ulster, hence the attempt at inclusiveness in the 2000 word article, all of which had been agreed over a phone call from which I took detailed notes. The magazine is due for release on Thursday 20 September, the day before the Culture Night festivities, and I will not know of the article's final outcome until then. I am using my blog to take ownership of my personal intellectual property rights to display the article in full, free of charge. It is not perfect and was written under pressure, but intends to be informative and fun. Many thanks to those who passed on images and information about events; I hope I have done you justice.

While scouring of the internet for absorption of information and tips concerning applications for academic posts and publishing, it becomes frighteningly clear that the sheer amount of us out there unable to peek through a crack in the door never mind get our foot in it is astounding. Almost daily there are blog posts and internet articles featuring rants from some anonymous PhD graduate about how they can’t get work and that our institutions or the government ought to provide training or some other vague suggestion that basically hands us an escape clause from actual real life. I am in this position myself and I do not want to be associated with this expectation that jobs and opportunities should be handed to us, so I am posting my personal position – with my name against it – to show that not all postdoctorates are not otherwise workshy, whinging brats. The dole is not an option for me. It wouldn’t even dent my monthly bills. Thankfully I have never had to sign on, and one of m...

Seeing that I am rather conscious that I began a blog with good intentions but have neglected to post due to unexpectedly getting full-time hours in my part-time job meaning I have not been out exploring the film and visual culture I am so passionate about, (*deep breath*) I am just going to post the odd fragment of older work until I can get out there making a critical nuisance of myself once again. Today’s instalment is my PhD thesis abstract for your viewing pleasure: Old Borders, New Technologies: Visual Culture and Social Change in Contemporary Northern Ireland The diverse convergence of film and visual art practices in contemporary Northern Ireland is indicative of its complex network of contested spaces; its visual culture is being radically re-shaped in the wake of the Troubles, and has become increasingly open to globally employed artistic influences and methods. Clearly, these factors challenge the expressive and social capability of traditional filmic practices to ...

Had a wee visit to Belfast Exposed this afternoon, it has been much too long. I went to discuss the possible use of some images from their archive for a Culture Night event that is slowly gathering in the dark cold chasms of my mind while it tries to focus on big important things like job applications and peer reviewed journal articles.  Anyway, after snooping around on the Gateways computer (a device full of digitized photographs that may cause you to lose many hours from your life - once you pop you can't stop), I delighted in viewing the Children in Need sponsored exhibition 'Now You See Us'. I am really impressed by the quality of the images taken by the young people affiliated to the various groups BX has been working with. Thoughtful composition, content, themes, and exploitation of the technology in their hands are all on display. The selected images juxtapose youthful innocence and the beauty and oddity of nature with the harsh realities of disillusionment coupled...

Yesterday, on the spur of the moment, instead of working on a job application I decided to attend a conference organized by former QUB Prof. of Film Des Bell and Irish historian Dr Fearghal McGarry, entitled 'Reframing History: film, television and the historians'. Interestingly, a few months back I attended some events during the BBC's Festival of History and Broadcasting ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-17033362 ). Many issues were raised yesterday that I've been pondering since February, and here are a few musings. One common debate was the integrity of televised historical documentary series or programmes. Many argue that the information is 'dumbed down' and the audience's intelligence insulted. The reality we are in now is that tabloid-esque broadcasting has generated a vicious supply-demand cycle in which the bulk of TV viewers seem to desire 'reality' shows and docu-dramas such as X-Factor, Geordie Shore, Big Brother, TOWI...