Dr Patty Baker, Senior Lecturer in Classical & Archaeological Studies, was invited to take part in the Summer School for Greek and Latin at University College London (UCL) to speak at a round table session about ‘Disability in Antiquity’.

Patty spoke about conceptions of mental disability or learning disability, and how this topic can be used as a prompt for difficult classroom discussions about modern issues of equity and inclusion for those who identify as such.

The round table session was made up of a panel of four experts who research the topic of disability in the past. Patty’s talk explored how adults with mental impairments were defined and treated in the Greco-Roman world, arguing that they were seen as incomplete adults and cared for as if they were children. The second part of her talk explained how information about disability in the ancient world can be used as a platform to evoke difficult classroom discussions in consideration of modern issues related to disability rights.

Patty described the event by saying: ‘The summer school was a mix of academics and students from around the world. Students focused on translating Homer in the morning and early afternoon and then attended an afternoon round-table on topics covered in their reading. The event led to a lively discussion between the audience and the panelists.’

Catriona Blackburn, currently studying on the MA in Film with Practice, has had her short film The Cracks selected for submission to five film festivals: One-Reeler Short Film Competition, the WRPN Women’s International Film Festival, Lisbon Film Rendezvous, Lift-Off Global Network Sessions, and KinoDUEL International Film Festival. In addition, Catriona’s film has been selected as a semi-finalist at Lisbon Film Rendezvous and for the Award of Excellence at One-Reeler Short Film Festival.

The Cracks follows the emotional journey of Anna (Katherine Hall) as she copes with a violation; of her body, of her trust, and of her mind. As the cracks begin to show, only her little love, Tio, can save her from total self-destruction.

Catriona’s time at Kent started in 2011, first studying a BSc (Hons) in Anthropology, for which she received first-class honours. After a year of working with academics within the university and beyond as a visual anthropologist, Catriona came back to Kent to study for an MA in Film with Practice in the School of Arts.

Catriona says: ‘It was an incredible learning experience, our lecturers always discussed with a level and respect and humility that meant our opinions felt recognised and relevant. I have always felt that Kent offered me a freedom to speak my mind and explore my creativity. I felt I had found my niche in Visual Anthropology after my undergraduate studies, but with the support of the School of Arts, in particular my supervisor for the final production Richard Misek, and technician Daniel Haywood, I see many more opportunities for myself in the future. Completing this course has given me confidence in my abilities not only as an independent film maker but as a producer and distributor. I cannot quite believe how much positive feedback my first fiction film has received, and before it has even been graded!’

What’s next for Catriona? ‘I plan to complete my current projects this coming year; ‘Ableism in Academia’, ‘Embodied Reflection’ with Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, and ‘Exploring Embodied Academic Identity through creative research methods’. Moving forward I hope to have the opportunity to produce films and documentaries, find funding for an experimental short using puppetry to speak about bereavement. I also have plans to make a feature documentary, showcasing the lack of support for new mothers and the onus on the mother’s responsibility within pregnancy and through to new motherhood, by following a group of pregnant women from different socio-economic backgrounds through into new motherhood’.

More of Catriona’s work can be viewed on her website: www.catrionablackburn.com

More information about The Cracks can be found here.

Dr Oliver Double, Reader in the Department of Drama and Theatre, was referenced by journalist Alan Beattie in the Financial Times last Saturday, 20 July 2019.

The article, entitled ‘Calling Boris Johnson a Clown is Unfair to Clowns’, argues that to compare the celebrity politician to a clown does a disservice to the clowning profession, which is an art form requiring skill and integrity.

The article reports Olly’s observation that ‘Johnson has carefully developed a persona as would a stand-up comic, complete with performative habit of constantly dishevelling his hair. But instead of using it simply to get laughs, he employs it to further his career.’

To read the full article (subscription required), please see the page here.

This summer the campus shops are being redeveloped as part of Kent Union’s partnership with Co-op.

As a result the Park Wood shop is closed until Thursday 25 July when it will reopen as Kent Union’s Park Wood Co-op, and the main Student Union Shop will close on Thursday 25 July reopening as Kent Union’s Co-op on Thursday 29 August.

While the main SU Shop is closed there will be a pop-up store on the Plaza selling meal deal sandwiches, drinks and crisps, confectionary, tea, coffee, sugar, biscuits, newspapers, fresh fruit, bread and some groceries. The pop-up will open daily from 24 July until 28 August, 10.00- 20.00.

Summer might be the ideal time to focus on our health and wellbeing needs.  The University is still busy but some of the pressures of the processes of the Academic Year have reduced giving staff an opportunity to take a breath, pause and consider their own needs.

Signing up to the University of Kent Staff Wellbeing Zone is exactly what you need to help you focus on your own wellbeing needs:

• It has a simple Wellbeing Assessment Tool
• Guidance in how to formulate wellbeing goals
• Exercise and Diet programmes to follow that have been put together to work
• Recipes to tempt you to eat more healthily
• Lots and lots of informative articles on all aspects of wellbeing:
  • Health Eating
  • Activity
  • Alcohol intake
  • Mental Health
  • Meditation

It’s all completely confidential and free.  And you can connect it to other fitness trackers or wearables that you already use.

You don’t need to register; simply hit the Log In button and use the university login.

Once again, congratulations to the Kent Hospitality Housekeeping department for winning two awards at the British Association of Cleaning in Higher Education (BACHE) Awards on the 8 and 9 July at Keele University.

Continuing their winning streak, the team were awarded the ‘Best Practice Award 2019’ at this year’s ceremony. The award recognised new housekeeping initiatives that helped maximise staff skills. This included producing their own best practice training videos, which have been utilised across the department.

Making the event a double win, Ratna Rai won the ‘Cleaning Operative of the Year Award 2019’. Ratna, who works as a Domestic Assistant in Park Wood, was recognised for her consistently high standards of cleaning and for improving the student experience by building positive relationships with Kent students.

Gary Sayles, Executive Housekeeping Manager, Kent Hospitality said: “we are absolutely thrilled at our success at the BACHE Awards. To be recognised again by a national association for our team’s consistent hard work is fantastic, and special congratulations are also due to Ratna on winning the Cleaning Operative award. As a team we are proud to deliver a consistently high standard of service here at the University of Kent.”

The awards recognise the importance of professional cleaning activities in higher education institutions. BACHE aims to standardise training for cleaning staff, improve cleaning standards, and professionalise the delivery of cleaning and associated services on campus.

Stephanie Obermeier, PhD student in German and Comparative Literature, currently in her writing up year and based at the German Literary Archive in Marbach, has published an article in the prestigious journal German Life and Letters.

The article emerged out of research on Felicitas Hoppe, whose 2012 novel Hoppe forms the basis for one of the case studies in Stephanie’s thesis. Her most recent publication, Prawda: Eine amerikanische Reise, deals with similar issues in terms of authorial posturing, playing with genre and canonical texts, and blurring boundaries between fact and fiction.

Dr Heide Kunzlemann, one of Stephanie’s supervisors, commented: ‘We would like to warmly congratulate Stephanie on the fantastic achievement of placing her first major article in such a prestigious journal as German Life and Letters. The academic community’s interest in the topic bodes very well for the success of her thesis which is about to be completed.’

Find out more about postgraduate programmes in Modern Languages and Comparative Literature.

Dr Alvise Sforza Tarabochia, Head of the Department of Modern Languages and lecturer in Italian, has published ‘The Years of Alienation in Italy’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

The Years of Alienation in Italy project first took shape in 2014, when the editors began to discuss the possibility of organising a conference on the cultural representations of the notion of alienation in Italy.

The goal was to tackle the notion of alienation in spatial terms, by examining the way in which literary and cinematic depictions of the factory and the asylum frequently blurred the dividing line between industrial alienation and clinical madness; and to investigate the specificities of an Italian approach to alienation by interpreting the ubiquitous presence of the term in social and cultural discourses, in the light of the country’s troubled history in the 1960s and 1970s.

The project took a more concrete form in 2015 when a two-day workshop was co-hosted by the University of Kent (15 May 2015) and the University of Cambridge (22 May 2015). The workshop was financed by the Kent Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (KIASH), the Italian department of the University of Cambridge and the journal Italianist.

The Years of Alienation in Italy is inspired by this exchange and discussion, the focus of which it maintains and expandsThe Years of Alienation in Italy offers an interdisciplinary overview of the socio-political, psychological, philosophical, and cultural meanings that the notion of alienation took on in Italy between the 1960s and the 1970s. It addresses alienation as a social condition of estrangement caused by the capitalist system, a pathological state of the mind and an ontological condition of subjectivity.

Between July and October this year the Estates Department will be conducting a mandatory five year condition survey of its building and engineering infrastructure, on its Canterbury and Medway campuses.  The purpose of these surveys is to collect invaluable data, that will enable us to plan and prioritise our investments for the next five years.

We will require access  to the majority of areas during this period, however the surveys are non-intrusive and we do not anticipate any disruption whilst we undertake these inspections, and operational impact should be minimal.  Once a specific programme  has been agreed with the surveyors we will be in  contact with you nearer the time,  to arrange and coordinate access to your specific areas.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation whilst we carry out these essential surveys.

If you have any queries regarding this work please do not hesitate to contact Estates Customer Services via email at estatescustomerservices@kent.ac.uk .