Student News
MCL Forum
The University has launched its Media Culture & Language Forum an initiative open for postgraduate students and faculty staff to present their research in a relaxed and friendly environment.
The first event counted with presentations from Michal Jans on his PhD research ‘What does grammar tell us about women? A case of fractal recursivity’ and Paul Sutton, Head of Media, Culture & Language Department who talked on his interests into French and Italian cinema and the remake, connecting with the book he is currently writing for Blackwell. The second seminar Dr. Pablo Romero-Fresco gave us a talk called ‘Bridging the Gap between Audiovisual Translation and Film Studies’ and Holly Giesman presented excerpts of her documentary ‘Encounters in authenticity: documentary film and the authentic national restaurant’ as part of her ongoing practice-based PhD.
For the third event, MA students in Media, Culture & Identity presented the posters of their course work. Subjects varied immensely. In film, this included the exploration of black femininity in American drama (Quichia Richards) and using the 'Black Swan' (Jessica Kril) as a case study for the analysis of the representation of women. Reality TV shows were also matter of renewed interest. 'Paradise Hotel' (Mabel Tetty) was analysed as case of usage of governance and self-disciplinary tools, 'Life on Mars' (Marit Rokeberg) was presented as a case of a transitional therapeutic space and '20 Lucas' (Mayra Hernandez) as an example of interaction between a glocalised product and the process of formation of identity. Other unique and innovative poster topics included the 'antisocial' Troll e-culture on the web (Zahir Nabil) and a perspective of 'Occidentalism' (Sarah Borden) as it is intended to analyse the western women and gender relations through Arab eyes. Current world political events were also subject of interest as the blogosphere in Iran (Sheida Hooshmandi) and the role of social media in Egypt revolution (Hytham Shareef). The extraordinary quality of the posters and presentations shows that MCL MA students have a broad range of interests and a firm grasp of the issues facing media and culture. Well done to all.
Closing the first season, Prof. Tope Omoniyi presented his research in the field of sociolinguists and his work on Nollywood and Theodora Thomadakis presented her current stage of research on reality TV with the talk ‘On the couch with Makeover TV: Psychoanalytical approaches to reality television, gender and audience’.
The MCL Forum is an opportunity to socialise, network and, most importantly, find links and common interests within the new MCL department and beyond. All university community is invited. If you can spare an hour to see some of the great work that is going on in the department, then please do pop along for the next events in May (to be announced soon).
For more information contact Claudio at nazarenc@roehampton.ac.uk
Story Dated: Monday 4 April 2011