Dr Chris Deacy, Reader in Theology and Religious Studies in the Department of Religious Studies, has just released a new episode of his podcast series on ‘Nostalgia’.

In the latest instalment, Chris interviews Dr Anthony Manning, Dean of Internationalisation at the University of Kent. In the interview, Anthony talks about his experience of growing up in a large family, but in a small town on the Isle of Man where his relatives ran a joke shop. We discuss the sense of community, based on old-fashioned values, which the shop elicited, and how its recent closure has resulted in a flood of nostalgia that he is considering channelling in new ways.

Anthony also talks about the culture shock of leaving the island in order to go to university in England, prompting a reflection on the nature of home and belonging, and we learn whether Anthony feels an attachment to any particular place. The concept of ‘neo-native Manx speakers’ is introduced, and Anthony discusses the benefits, based on personal experience, of understanding other people’s languages and cultures. Anthony grew up on an island with 80,000 people that had just one cinema.

We find out why he was into The Cure and The Smiths when he was at university, and also we hear about some of the challenges involved in ‘fitting in’. We discuss the grunge dimension of university in the early 1990s, and what led Anthony to protest marches during his undergraduate studies.

Finally, Anthony discusses why he doesn’t look back on the past with regrets, but has an urge to capture everything photographically, and we consider how and why photos are able to bring back more memories than we would otherwise be able to retain.

The podcast is available here.

It’s the second consecutive year the Kent Law School has been featured in the prestigious global league table (published this week).  A total of 200 law schools are selected for the table based on the strength of their research publication output over a four-year period. Kent is one of only 12 UK law schools to be listed in the top 100.

Kent Law School has an excellent global reputation for law – it is ranked 50th in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018 and are among the top 150 law schools in the QS World University Rankings 2017.

The Law School also has an international reputation for producing world-leading research. In the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014, Kent Law School was ranked eighth in the UK for research intensity. Almost all (99%) of the School’s research was judged to be of international quality with 79% judged as ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’.

Kent is also a leading UK law school, ranked 13th in The Guardian University Guide 2019 for law, 14th in The Times Good University Guide 2018 and 18th in The Complete University Guide 2019.

Dr Paul March-Russell, Specialist Associate Lecturer in the Department of Comparative Literature and editor of Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, has contributed an article to The Conversation on US President Donald Trump’s plans for a ‘Space Force’ from a science-fiction perspective, published today 16 August 2018.

The Conversation is an independent website consisting of news and views sourced from the academic and research community, and delivered direct to the public.

‘The rhetoric of both Pence and Trump, referring respectively to “the boundless expanse of space” and the necessity for “American dominance”, is inherently science-fictional, but of a particularly American kind,’ explains Paul in the article, who places the language and ideas in the context of the traditions of American science fiction.

Comparing Trump’s Space Force plants to Reagan’s earlier Strategic Defence Initiative in the 1980s, which became known as ‘Star Wars’, Paul concludes ‘what we can deduce from the proposal is that we are firmly in the logic of the reboot, that much loved tactic of longrunning movie franchises.’

Read the full article here.

The Department of Classical & Archaeological Studies at Kent is delighted to be hosting the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (TRAC) next year, 11-14 April 2019.

TRAC is an unincorporated voluntary association that has developed from and around the annual series of conferences held since 1991. The first TRAC was held in 1991 to widen the range of perspectives offered, and voices heard, in Roman Archaeology.

The TRAC 2019 Local Organising Committee includes PhD student Philip Smither (Chair), PhD student and Graduate Teaching Assistant Karl Goodwin (Vice-Chair), PhD student Sophie Chavarria, as well as Dr Jo Stoner, Research Associate, and Dr David Walsh, Lecturer in Classical & Archaeological Studies.

The committee are inviting proposals for conference sessions, which will include between 4 and 6 papers, each around 20 minutes, with 10 minutes for questions.

The conference will run three regular parallel sessions alongside an ‘unconference’ of more informal discussion groups. More information on, and ideas for, ‘unconference’ sessions can be found here. If you would like to propose a topic for one of the unconference sessions, please specify this in your proposal. TRAC welcome ideas for sessions outside the traditional presentation format including workshops focused on particular themes and/or theories.

The deadline for the submission of session proposals is Sunday 2 September 2018. Submissions should be sent by email to: trac2019@kent.ac.uk

For further details about call for sessions, please see the TRAC page here.

The latest episode of podcast series on ‘Nostalgia’, hosted by Dr Chris Deacy, Reader in Theology and Religious Studies in the Department of Religious Studies, has just been released.

In this week’s interview, Chris interviews a member of professional services staff at the University of Kent, Silvia Rasca.

Silvia has recently joined Kent as Assistant Project Manager for the Integrating Student Frontline Services Project. In this fascinating interview, Silvia talks about her journey to Canterbury from Romania and the political turmoil in her native country in the late 1980s, when she was born, and the impact it had on her and her family in the years that followed. Silvia reflects on how she has applied the goals and values instilled in her by her family to her new home, where Silvia discusses the importance of challenging and pushing barriers.

Silvia talks about keeping a diary and she explains why she tries not to have any regrets in life. Her grandparents are a particular inspiration for her, and Silvia tells us the secret of why her grandparents’ chickens had to be spoken to in Hungarian. Her father was a professional volleyball player and Silvia talks about how she used to accompany him to matches. We learn about the type of music that her parents disapproved of her listening to, and she confesses to once having taped over her father’s beloved Pink Floyd cassette tape with Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’.

Silvia talks about the role that production and scriptwriting played in her degree and why she enjoyed standing in front of a class as it exposed herself to vulnerable situations which enabled her to ‘rise to the occasion’.

The interview concludes with some candid reflections on the role of activism in her native Romania and we learn whether Silvia is a looking back or a looking forward type of person.

The podcast is available here:
https://audioboom.com/posts/6960671-silvia-rasca

One of the leading British Baritones of the 20th century, Sir Thomas Allen, will be performing works from a recently recorded CD including composers such as George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Jerome Kern. Taking place on Friday 21 September at 7.30pm, this is an evening not to be missed!

Sir Thomas Allen is an established star of the great opera houses of the world. At the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where in 2011 he celebrated the 40th anniversary of his debut with the company, he has sung over fifty roles.  The same year he also celebrated the 30th anniversary of his debut at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. He returns to the Metropolitan Opera in 17/18 for his acclaimed portrayal of Baron Zeta (The Merry Widow).

In addition to his dizzying list of performances in iconic roles in his 40+ year career, Allen has shot into 2018 off 2017 opera appearances that include Music Master (Ariadne auf Naxos) at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Roc in The Exterminating Angel (Thomas Adés) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

An Evening with Sir Thomas Allen will be held in the Colyer-Fergusson Hall at Gulbenkian on Friday 21 September. Tickets: Full £15 / Student £10. For more information and tickets please visit the Gulbenkian website or call 01227 769075.

Try your hand at Japanese crafts and watch performances during our A Taste of Japan event on Wednesday 15 August from 17.00-18.30 in the Chipperfield Building, Canterbury campus.

The event is hosted and performed by Japanese university students studying on the Centre for English and World Languages’ Short Courses.

Entry is free – just turn up on the day!

For more information, please email cewl@kent.ac.uk or phone 01227 824401.