Busy bodies: the afterlives of photographic motion studies in contemporary visual culture
Dr Sara Callahan It is sometimes said that more images are now produced every minute than were made during the entire nineteenth century. Although I can’t vouch for the veracity of this statement, it is clear that contemporary culture is characterised by the production, reproduction and circulation of images and that many images that originated…
New article in Narrative Inquiry on Sharing ‘memories’ on Instagram
Taylor Annabell I am delighted that my article, ‘Sharing ‘memories’ on Instagram: A narrative approach to the performance of remembered experience by young women online’ has been published in Narrative Inquiry. This article considers how sharing that takes place in-the-moment on Instagram involves the performance of remembered experience. Although the platform pushes us to share…
New Chapter: Fandom: Historicized Fandom and the Conversation between East and West Perspectives
Erika Ningxin Wang The chapter I have co-authored with Dr Eleonora Benecchi, Università della Svizzera Italiana, discusses the transformation of the concept of “Fandom” before and after the digital age, and the conversation between East and West. It is included in the book Digital Roots: Historicizing Media and Communication Concepts of the Digital Age, part…
Fan Studies Research Seminar at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU)
Erika Ningxin Wang I was invited as a guest speaker at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), the Chinese campus of the University of Liverpool, to give a talk entitled “Resistance or Negotiation? The Relationship between Chinese Fan Culture and the Mainstream Power Discourse”. On Friday, 2nd April 2021, Professor Marco Pellitteri chaired the seminar in School…
Why should we care about stored museum collections?
Dr Anna Woodham People are often surprised to discover that behind the scenes in museum storerooms across the globe, there are millions of objects that will never go on public display. Many of these objects are duplicates, ‘bulk’ collections, such as archaeological finds, or objects which could be described as “uncharismatic”. There are also objects…
Emotionally Demanding Research in Lockdown
Lauren Cantillon One definition of ‘emotionally demanding research’ is ‘research that demands a tremendous amount of mental, emotional, or physical energy and potentially affects or depletes the researcher’s health or well-being’ (Kumar and Cavallaro, 2017, p.648). There is an ever-growing literature on how to protect the mental wellbeing of a researcher or research team when…
Understanding contemporary Chinese national identity formation through Taiwan
Andong Li Scholarship of nationalism studies has been trying hard to respond to the paradox that nationalist sentiment sharply surges in many countries while the world is becoming more digitalised and globalised. It seems to be increasingly obvious that the cosmopolitan promise of globalisation and digitisation has failed, and cross-Strait (Chinese mainland-Taiwan) relations might be…
The new activist museum agenda: an interview with Dr Red Chidgey
Protest has become a popular topic of interest in the national arts and heritage sector. In the past year alone, The British Museum hosted I object, an exhibition dedicated to protest objects running from graffiti on a Babylonian brick to a recent anti-Trump Pussyhat. The Imperial War Museum celebrated peace activism in People Power, and…
Reflections on the Cultural Memory Group: Forgetting in the Digital Media Ecology
Taylor Annabell At a recent session of the Culture Memory Group, Professor Andrew Hoskins from the University of Glasgow invited us to consider the significance of forgetting in understanding memory and in particular, approaching memory in the digital media ecology. In my PhD project I have followed the path of memory studies in focusing on memory…
Troubled Waters, Stormy Futures: heritage in times of accelerated climate change
The winter storms of 2013-2014 set new precedents of coastal damage in the UK, forcing government, heritage bodies and local communities to seriously reconsider the future management of coastal heritage. Relevant organisations were seemingly unprepared for these events, and communities were possibly surprised by what had happened, as well as by their own emotional response.…
Culture Media and Creative Industries @ Kings 