I had my first experience of teaching students recently. I wanted to share with you some of the thoughts and reflections I had before, during and after the experience. Hopefully, if you are going to be teaching for the first time, these tips may help you.
“Many Hands”
The Many Hands Project is run by Natalie Lee and Layla Hendow, with photography by Yasmine Akim.
Under Her Eye Festival and Summit
The Under Her Eye festival and summit ran from 1-2 June, 2018. I worked with Invisible Dust as a Young Curator, and took part in the Under Her Eye fellowship with 14 other female professionals and activists.
Under Her Eye Training Weekend
This week I was thrilled to be starting the Under Her Eye fellowship with Invisible Dust.
I have been interested in Invisible Dust since I began my research on waste and garbage, and I am fascinated by the possibilities of interdisciplinary work between the arts and environmental research. My work is based on literature and considers the representation and impact of waste and garbage on postmodern American society. My research has taken me on a variety of avenues including waste studies and petro-studies, and I am always looking for ways in which I can adapt my work for public engagement purposes. This is all the more important for research based on the waste crisis, which is having such a detrimental and critical effect on the environment. For these, and many other reasons, I was honored and excited to be part of the 15 young women taking part in this project.
Recycling the Human Body in Post-apocalypse Literature
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we use, abuse, reuse and recycle the human body in post-apocalypse literature. Often, this topic is something brushed over in favour of more common post-apocalypse themes, whether it be violence, the survival of the fittest, limited resources, war and politics. I am much more interested in the representation of the contemporary body in this literature: creators, creatures, cannibals and corpses.
Recycling the Human Body – Literary Creatures
To continue my analysis of recycling the human body in literature, I want to look at literary creations – building on ideas of the cyborg, science fiction, genetic engineering and scientific discovery.
Recycling the Human Body – Literary Cannibals
To continue on from my last post about recycling the human body, I want to give a literary example of cannibalism.
Science Roadshow for British Science Week
Invisible Dust Young Curator Fellowship Scheme – Observing Science Roadshow at Scarborough UTC
When?
16th March 2018
What?
This event brought together Invisible Dust, Hull University Street Scientists and the Scarborough UTC. Three shows ran throughout the day (9:30am, 11am, and 1pm). Over 700 students came, ranging from Year 5 to Year 8. Phil performed and gave interactive demonstrations using volunteers from the audience.
Review: Cyber Apocalypse in “The Circle” by Dave Eggers
Create a scenario in your mind. The cyber-apocalypse is upon us. A corporation, like Google for example, has taken over the world’s virtual presence. By extension, it has taken over every human being’s presence within that world. What would you do? Submit yourself to the world of social media, enjoy the kind of detached familiarity of being open with the entire world, or seclude yourself, like a refugee, and cut yourself from the world and live in nature and liberty?
Power, Gender and Oil in Nawal El-Saadawi’s Love in the Kingdom of Oil
ABSTRACT
What is the link between oil and woman?
This paper examines the nature of visibility and power in Nawal El-Saadawi’s Love in the Kingdom of Oil. Love in the Kingdom of Oil is an intriguing novel about what it means to be unseen and seen. It occurs on two levels: geographically, in terms of the oil that flows uncontrolled across the unnamed landscapes; and socially, commenting on the Middle Eastern attitudes to women in the use of the veil. It is my contention that in this novel, oil and women have one important characteristic in common: they are forced into the realm of the unseen, and that invisibility can both be repressive and the symbol of freedom. More than this, El-Saadawi hints at the fact that one more thing connects oil and woman – the dominance of patriarchy. If the oil industry is a system controlled by patriarchy, it stands to reason that that oil, as an object, is feminine. Oil is objectified and utilised just as women are; on the one hand displayed as a commodity and, on the other, kept from sight: hidden in pipelines and under veils. Using Rob Nixon’s suggestion that the oil industry is an example of the ‘invisibility of slow violence’, I suggest that it is the binary opposition of the visible and the invisible that is the key to the comments El-Saadawi makes on both women and oil.
Paper can be found here: http://www.brill.com/products/book/seen-and-unseen-visual-culture-imperialism
Life, Lessons and Literature 