Podcast on comedienne Linda Smith’s signature gags

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Dr Oliver Double, Deputy Head of the School of Arts and Director of the Centre for Popular and Comic Performance, has just released the latest episode of the podcast series ‘A History of Comedy in Several Objects’.

In the podcast series, Olly examines objects from Kent’s British Stand-Up Comedy Archive alongside Project Archivist Elspeth Millar.

The recent film Funny Cow (2017) uses one of the late, great Linda Smith’s signature jokes without permission or attribution. ‘Comedians and funny men see material as being common property… A lot of the jokes are shared,’ explains Olly in the episode.

Elspeth and Olly look through Linda’s old set-lists and unpublished recordings going back to the 1980s to trace the origins of the joke, and look into how it fits into her development as a comedian. You’ll hear different versions of the gag at different points in her career, to show how it changed and developed. It’s still quoted as one of Linda’s best jokes today. So what is the gag? All I’ll say is if you’re a fan of Linda’s – and not so much of her hometown Erith – you probably already know it. In any case, listen to the episode and find out.

The podcast is free to download and is available here:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-history-of-comedy-in-several-objects/id1210414720?mt=2

Studio 3 gallery hosts exhibition on revolution

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The School of Arts is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibition, Beyond the Barricade, in the Studio 3 Gallery in the Jarman Building, from 28 September 2018.

Based on the spirit of the French Revolution, the exhibition brings artists from various nations together to look at different dimensions of revolutions. By documenting past upheavals and recent events, the exhibition aims to present artistic creation as a form of social and political action.

Beyond the Barricade has been supported by the nationally funded project, the Age of Revolution, in partnership with Waterloo 200.

The Studio 3 Gallery is the School’s dedicated exhibition space which plays hosts to major exhibitions and annual shows that are open to the public.

The exhibition will run until 30 November 2018.

For more details about Studio 3, please see the webpage here:
https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/studio3gallery/about/

Nicola Shaughnessy shortlisted for THE award

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Nicola Shaughnessy, Professor of Performance and Director of Research in the School of Arts, has been shortlisted for the Outstanding Supervisor of the Year in this year’s Times Higher Education (THE) Awards.

Nicola has supported a wide range of doctoral students, drawing upon personal experience in projects that use creative and practical approaches to engage with neurodiversity such as dyslexia and acting, staging psychic distress, autism and gender identity.

The THE Awards exemplify the talent, dedication and innovation of individuals and teams across all aspects of university life. They are open to all UK higher education institutions, and are described as ‘the Oscars of the higher education sector’. Nicola was selected after winning Kent Graduate School’s inaugural Research Supervisor of the Year award and on the strength of the student testimonials supporting her application.

The awards will be announced in a ceremony on Thursday 29 November 2018.

To read the full shortlist, please see the page here:
www.the-awards.co.uk/2018/en/page/shortlist

Dr Ben Thomas – ‘Edgar Wind and Modern Art: Realism and Symbolism’ at EAM Conference 2018

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Dr Ben Thomas, Senior Lecturer in History of Art, will be giving a paper at a major international conference in Munster, Germany, on 6th September 2018.

The EAM annual conference (European Network for Avant-garde and Modernism Studies) is dedicated to the theme of Realism(s) of the Avant-garde and Modernism this year. Thomas’s paper is entitled ‘Edgar Wind and Modern Art: Realism and Symbolism’ and will present research for a new book on the art historian Edgar Wind (1900-71) that will be published by Bloomsbury in 2019.

Read more about the EAM conference here.

Dr Maurizio Cinquegrani publishes new book ‘Journey to Poland: Documentary Landscapes of the Holocaust’

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Dr Maurizio Cinquegrani, Senior Lecturer in Film at the School of Arts has published a book entitled Journey to Poland: Documentary Landscapes of the Holocaust (Edinburgh University Press, July 2018).

Journey to Poland addresses crucial issues of memory and history in relation to the Holocaust as it unfolded in the territories of the Second Polish Republic. Aiming to understand the ways past events inform present-day landscapes, and the way in which we engage with memory, witnessing and representation, the book creates a coherent cinematic map of this landscape through the study of previously neglected film and TV documentaries that focus on survivors and bystanders, as well as on members of the post-war generation. Applying a spatial and geographical approach to a debate previously organised around other frameworks of analysis, Journey to Poland uncovers vital new perspectives on the Holocaust.

 

Dr Ben Thomas awarded Readership

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Congratulations to Dr Ben Thomas, who has recently been awarded a Readership! Ben is an art historian and curator who convenes School of Arts modules such as HA826 History and Theory of Curating at postgraduate level, and HA573 Print Collecting and Curating at undergraduate level.

Ben is co-curator with Catherine Whistler of Raphael: The Drawings at the Ashmolean Museum (1 June – 3 September 2017), described by The Financial Times as ‘a game-changing presentation of graphic art’. He is also the curator, with Ketty Gottardo, of the exhibition Drawing Together at the Courtauld Gallery (30 September 2017 – 2 January 2018).

At Kent, Ben was the founding Curator of Kent’s Studio 3 Gallery from 2010 until 2015, and in 2005 he founded the Kent Print Collection, a museum-standard collection of prints where only undergraduate students can make acquisitions for the university.

PATAZ: Physical Actor Training – An Online A-Z

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PATAZ: Physical Actor Training – an online A-Z is launching on 25th July 2018. Created by Paul Allain and Frank Camilleri with filmmakers Peter Hulton and Stacie Lee Bennett, PATAZ is funded by a Leverhulme Trust research grant.

The digital resource is created by actor trainers, and trainees from the University of Kent. PATAZ prioritizes movement, voice, and the body rather than character or text-based approaches to making performance and preparing the actor. For students, practitioners and teachers, the A-Z works across film, text, audio and image.

Click here for more information

Cognitive Futures in the Arts and Humanities 2018

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On Sunday 1st July – Wednesday 4th July the School of Arts at the University of Kent will be hosting the 6th Annual Cognitive Futures Conference.

The conference is being led by Nickie Shaughnessy, Melissa Trimingham, Freya Vass Rhee and Jeremy Scott, and aims to bring together a wide array of papers from the cognitive sciences, philosophy, literary studies, linguistics, cultural studies, critical theory, film, performance, theatre and dance studies, the visual and sonic arts, musicology and beyond.

We are welcoming 180 international delegates, reading 153 papers in 54 panels over three days.

Find out more here: https://research.kent.ac.uk/cognitivefutures2018/

 

First-Year Music Performance Scholar and BA Drama & English Language and Linguistics Student works with composer Andrew Lippa

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Hannah Ost, first-year Music Performance Scholar and BA Drama and English Language and Linguistics Student, recently had the opportunity to act as Music Assistant to composer Andrew Lippa as he worked on rehearsals for A Little Princess at the Royal Festival Hall. Hannah had the opportunity to experience dress rehearsals and the show’s first performance, and attended the showbiz after party.

Read about Hannah’s exciting experiences here: https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/music-matters/2018/06/20/a-chicken-sandwich-a-shoe-emergency-and-a-conductors-baton-a-day-in-the-life-of-hannah-ost/

ARC and CFMR Research Seminar: ‘The problematic relationship with perpetrators in contemporary documentaries’ (26/6/18)

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The Aesthetics Research Centre and the Centre for Film and Media Research invite you to a research seminar with our Visiting Research Fellow Dr Fernando Canet,
Associate Professor in Film Studies at the Fine Arts College, Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain). All are welcome.

‘The problematic relationship with perpetrators in contemporary documentaries’

Tuesday 26th June 2018 at 5pm in Jarman Seminar Room 7

Recently a significant number of documentaries explore the memory of the traumatic atrocities against humanity in the 20th century. The originality of these non-fiction narratives lies in the change of point of view: the films’ protagonists are the perpetrators rather than the victims. The exploration of these documentaries, such us Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014), Panh’s S-21, The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003) and The Missing Picture (2013), Folman’s Waltz with Bashir (2008) and Mograbi’s Z32 (2008), allows us to address how different geographical and historical contexts influence the perpetrators’ construction of their memories. On the other hand, there are also common features, regardless of context, that could establish a universal profile for the figure of the perpetrator and thus suggest a form of transcultural memory. Moreover, these films call for an exploration of how filmmakers, victims, and viewers respond morally to the perpetrators’ personal memorization mediatized by these collective factors. Being involved with perpetrators can become ethically problematic when they try to justify their atrocities.

Dr. Fernando Canet is Associate Professor in Media and Film Studies at the Fine Arts College (Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain). He has been a visiting research fellow at Goldsmiths College University of London and at New York University. He is currently a visiting senior research fellow at University of Kent. He is the author of two books, co-author of another, and co-editor of three books, such as a co-edited book titled (Re)viewing Creative, Critical and Commercial Practices in Contemporary Spanish Cinema for Intellect Ltd. He has been the guest editor of a special issue of Hispanic Research Journal on Contemporary Spanish Cinema and a special issue of L´Atalante. International Film Studies Journal on Cinephile Directors in Modern Time. When the Cinema Interrogates Itself. His latest articles have been published in Communication & Society, Studies in European Cinema, Studies in Documentary Films, The Journal of Popular Culture, Popular Communication, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, and Journal of Film and Video.