6A. Room 1 — Phantasmagoria
Chair: Joseph Williams, School of Literature, Drama, and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia
Janette Leaf
‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Bug? Antipathy in Richard Marsh’s The Beetle versus Sympathy in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis’
Mary Newbold
‘Phantoms that Exist: The Political Aesthetics of the Algorithm’
+ Abstract
This paper discusses why Richard Marsh’s big bug might evoke terror whereas the big bug of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis evokes mainly pity. No prior knowledge of the texts is required since for those unfamiliar with the 1897 bestseller or the 1912 novella, the presentation incorporates a very brief summary of the plots. The paper explores how insect imagery is deployed by both authors, and the extent to which the dominant perspective within the respective narratives is linked to contrasting emotional reactions to the humans turned beetle at the centre of each tale. The two shapeshifters bear a marked similarity to one another, yet readers feel differently about them. Who’s afraid of the big bad bug and why don’t they feel the same way about the other one? That is the question, and it is addressed in terms of otherness manifested in insect form as well as the degree of access to the interiority of the respective characters and their retained humanity. Why might fellow feeling be denied entry through a late-Victorian monstrous carapace yet be able to penetrate an alternative exoskeleton with ease?This research arises out of early editions of the fifth chapter of Janette’s thesis ‘Locating the Sympathetic Insect: Cultural Entomology and Emotional Responses to Richard Marsh’s The Beetle’. It is very much a work in progress.Janette Leaf is a PhD researcher at Birkbeck’s Department of English, Theatre and Creative Writing. She has presented conference papers to Urban Weird, London Victorian Studies and the Institute of English Studies among others. She reviews for the British Society for Literature and Science, and is co-editing an anthology for British Library Publishing, Crawling Horror: Creeping Tales of the Insect Weird.
+ Abstract
In his researches into nineteenth-century Paris during the 1930s, Walter Benjamin used the concept of phantasmagoria as critical tool for interpreting ideological consciousness under the capitalist mode of production. Taking influence from Marx, Benjamin drew on the illusory effects of optical devices to critique the dominant modes of perception that emerged from urban life. In the contemporary context, our entrenchment with technological forms is ever deepening. Yet, much like the phantasmagoria shows of the eighteenth century, the technical processes of global technology corporations are occulted by the outward appearance of the product. In this paper, I use Benjamin’s phantasmagoria thought figure to work through the senses in which Google’s Page Rank and DeepDream algorithms can be understood as phantasmagorias of the digital realm. I explore the ways in which Google’s ethos contributes to the shaping of the neoliberal (the digitally tracked, auto-exploiting) subject through what I argue is a phantasmagorical presence.Mary Newbold: I am a third year (part-time) doctoral student at Birkbeck College, within the School of Arts. In my thesis I examine the relationship between visual technologies and human sense perception. I engage with the materialist philosophy of Walter Benjamin in order to critically interpret contemporary technological forms and to speculate on their effects on human sense perception.
6B. Room 2 — Work-In-Progress 2: Image and Belief
Chair: Rachel McNair Smith, SRU, UEA
Rachel McNair Smith, SRU, UEA
‘Collecting British New Guinea: Ornaments and the Ornamented Body in UK Museums and Archives’
(classification; curation; object history)Deborah Dainese, SRU, UEA
‘Art, Inculturation and Catholic Missions in Central Africa during the Mid-Twentieth Century: Understanding the Sculpture of Gabriel Mashitolo from Kwango, Democratic Republic of Congo’
(theology; wood carving; post-colonial; Mashitolo Mwata Zola)Thomas Elliott, Department of Art History, Sussex
‘Towards a Queer Iconology of Christian Imagery: Christian Themes in Queer Art at the End of the 19th and 20th Centuries’
(Alma Lopez; Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin; Virgin Mary; theology; popular art)Natalie Greenwood (Department of English, Theatre, and Creative Writing, Birkbeck)
Crossing Over: Soul Journeys in Late Medieval English Literature
(afterlife; otherworld topography; Reformation)Naomi Smith (Department of Film, Media and Cultural Studies, Birkbeck)
Rethinking Broadcast News Values
(decolonisation; journalism; news selection practices)
6C. Room 4 — Education Network Session
Ayisha Ahmed and Chloe Cheetham
The Education Network aims to unite researchers across disciplines who are interested in developing their knowledge and research skills relating to research in education with children, and young people. We hope to connect researchers across disciplines interested in conducting cutting-edge research on the educational process in various socio-cultural settings. The network will enable us to share innovative methodologies appropriate for working with children and young people, discuss evolving policies and regulations relating to ethics and safeguarding when conducting research with children, and share findings and theoretical insights from our different fields about our work on education with children and young people. The aim of the network is to share practical as well as theoretical and policy related developments related to research with children and young people both in the UK and internationally. This would connect researchers on education, children, and youth from across disciplines within the CHASE consortium and create the possibility for joint projects or collaborative research.
+ Session info & bios
Encounters session schedule:
- Meet and greet
- Discuss the aims and objectives of the network
- Q & A — invite suggestions for further topics/ events that the Network could cover
- Discuss the possibility of doing an online event on ‘conducting research and safeguarding issues in a Covid-environment in education’.
Ayisha Ahmed: I’m a previous SOAS student who has returned to embark on doctoral research on schooling in Africa, using Ghana as a case study. I’m currently in my second year at SOAS in the department for Anthropology and Sociology.Chloe Cheetham: I’m in the English and Comparative Literature department at Goldsmiths. My ‘Even the Girls are Lads!’ study examines the linguistic practices of a mixed-sex Year 6 class in North London, considering the relationship between language, gender and identity. I began teaching in primary and secondary schools in 2010, and qualified as a primary school teacher in 2013. I currently teach at a Junior School in north London and specialise in Year 6 English.
6D. Room 5 – Artist Interview, ‘Particulate Matters 2.5’ – ‘Lessons from Lockdown’ Exhibition, Peltz Gallery
Jennie Pedley and Jonathan Maris interviewed by Cliff Hammett and Elly Clarke
Artist and NHS physiotherapist Jennie Pedley’s film is inspired by research into links between the pandemic and pollution. Exploring the health of both the body and the environment, the artwork poses questions about how we can live now. A scarred torso becomes the setting for this film it performs deep breathing techniques which set off a stream of ambiguous objects. Sound is by Mollusc Music.Peltz Gallery Resources
+ Bios
Jennie Pedley is an artist and an NHS physiotherapist, with degrees in both disciplines. Her artwork explores issues concerning the health of the body and of the environment. Previous projects investigated: the gut microbiome, human ageing, life-stories of people with cerebral palsy, breast cancer and marine biology. Pedley has worked with research institutions, galleries, museums, wildlife organisations, schools and libraries. www.jenniepedley.co.ukJonathan Maris was born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. After studying art and music at Brighton Poly he attempted to become a rock star but found himself writing music for television for many years instead. Jonathan also draws storyboards and makes animatics for films. Find Jonathan’s work at: www.monkeyshine.london; www.jonathanmaris.com; www.molluscmusic.co.uk.Cliff Hammett is a fourth year PhD student in Creative and Critical Practice in the school of Media, Arts and Humanities, University of Sussex. His project, Nightsniffing, uses critical making to reimagine urban bat walking as a way to collectively investigate the systems that shape London and other UK cities.Elly Clarke (Department of Art, Goldsmiths) is an artist interested in the performance and resistance of the physical body in a digitally-mediated world, which she explores through video, photography, music, community-based projects and #Sergina — a multi-bodied, border-straddling drag queen who, across one body and several, sings and performs songs online and offline about love, lust and loneliness in the mesh of hyper-dis/connection.