The University of Greenwich Programme Leader for MA Digital Arts, Jim Hobbs has announced the opening of his exhibition Moribund State[s]from 1st August at Project 78, as the restart of their exhibition programme. The project has been 18 months in the making and is a perfect reflection of the ideology and intention of Project 78. The show will run until 29th August 2020.
For Moribund State(s), Hobbs has returned to his childhood home (Ohio, USA) in order to confront the place where one is originally from. With a perspective that is only gained from a distance (in both time and space), he has gathered indigenous materials in order to forge a series of new works which poetically ascribe a familiar yet foreign place.
Another proud moment for the University of Greenwich and a triumph in current times. The Research project on diversity and inclusivity by design, based in the School of Design and led by Dr Anastasios Maragiannis achieved global recognition by UNESCO partner organisation.
The research is recognised by the prestigious International Institute for Information Design (IIID) awards, which celebrate information designers’ contribution to society. A list of awarded projects can be viewed on IIID website .
The awards, which take place every three years, look for evidence of where designers have applied creativity and design thinking to solve complex communication problems with a view to improving aspects of human life.
University of Greenwich student, Madeleine Hatton, an undergraduate Criminology and Criminology Psychology programme, expressed how she felt about the experience of working withing the prison system: “I feel that gaining a variety of experiences in the criminal justice system is invaluable. Earlier this year I gained a unique experience through my involvement with the Inside-Out programme, where I completed a criminology module inside of a prison”.
Madeleine worked closely with the prison policy team and completed a variety of activities, including conducting a literature review into the coping mechanisms for self-harm and suicide in prisons during a lockdown, writing a policy paper on the same topic, and then presenting the main findings of this paper to the prison policy team.
Madeleine Hatton
“This module was extremely eye-opening and has encouraged me to widen my future career path to potentially working within the prison system. Over the lockdown period, I was fortunate enough to gain two weeks work experience with the Ministry of Justice”.
Although the lockdown in response to COVID-19 in prison has been one of the largest, it is not the first prison lockdown to occur. There have previously been prison lockdowns due to viral outbreaks and prison riots, amongst other reasons, so there is a lot to learn about prison lockdown responses, easing restrictions, and the impact this has on self-harm and suicide of incarcerated people and the staff who work in and around prisons. This policy paper explores the different aspects of self-harm and suicide in relation to the prison lockdown, additional coping strategies after lockdown restrictions are eased, and recommendations for the policy professionals.
The literature review highlighted multiple areas of research surrounding self-harm and suicide in prisons that require further research, listed in the research paper. The student found “the opportunity was challenging as the work revolved around investigating suicide and self-harm, as well as mental health and the impacts of COVID-19 on inmates, their friends and family, and the staff members”.
Madeleine concluded that “this experience was a preview of the work the Ministry of Justice do each day, and the pace and pressure of working here. Though, this has definitely fulfilled my aspirations for working for the Civil Service in the future. All of my work placement activities were completed remotely due to COVID-19, but this did not hamper my enjoyment of what proved to be an insightful experience. This opportunity has furthered my confidence in why the degree I do is so important, as we are the future generation of people that will hopefully be in the position to be able to make positive changes in the criminal justice system”.
Congratulations to Madeleine and the School of Law & Criminology for stealing the spotlight!
Over three days 15-17 July, the annual conference of the Victorian Popular Fiction Association (VPFA) was held by the University of Greenwich. It was the second year in a row that we held the conference – the Association’s President is Professor Andrew King (HSS) – but the first it was held virtually. 103 delegates from 5 continents came together on Teams to discuss topics such as Medical Encounters, Science and the Supernatural, Vampires, Travel, and Disaster.
Professor Alexis Easley from the University of St Thomas, Minnesota, gave a stunningly researched paper which (literally) mapped and quantified the contributions of hundreds of women writers to the famous Chambers’s Journal, the first periodical to aim at a truly mass market in a modern sense. She showed how women were absolutely central to the founding of mass-market reading, and that, contrary to expectation, they suffered from less than a 3% pay discrimination. Such repositioning of women as core producers in the cultural industries and our narrative imaginary is fundamental to the VPFA’s mission, and almost all of the papers confirmed this.
A handful of the best papers will be selected for publication in Victorian Popular Fictions, the organ of the VPFA, edited by Andrew King and by Prof Mariaconcetta Costantini (University of Chieti-Pescara).
Conference participants
Conference delegates were unanimous that the conference was a great success: they were especially grateful that we found a way to go ahead when so many others have been cancelled or indefinitely postponed. Given the huge cuts in research budgets across the globe as well as the greener credentials of online conferences, what we have pioneered here may well be the way forward. In whatever form, planning for the 2021 conference at Greenwich is already underway. The successful conference was coordinated by Karen Ward from FLAS Research and Enterprise Support Office.
Congratulations to Professor Andrew King for stealing the online spotlight!
Dr Maria J. Arche, Centre for Research & Enterprise in Language (CREL) University of Greenwich, is the Principal Investigator of an interdisciplinary group formed by Dr Angeliek van Hout (co-PI), Center for Language and Cognition, University of Groningen, Dr Alex Perovic, Psychology & Language Sciences, University College London, Josep Quer, ICREA-Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona and Prof. Petra Schulz, Theory and Pedagogy of Bilingual Acquisition, University of Frankfurt.
NIAS is one of the institutes of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) – its mission is to provide a physical and intellectual space for advanced research in the humanities and social sciences that is driven by curiosity and cross-discipline collaboration. NIAS is committed to supporting independent research and knowledge exchange in a setting that is both collaborative and multi-disciplinary – breaking down cross-discipline barriers and facilitating innovative advances in the process.
Dr Mary Arche
A proud moment for Dr Maria Arche, CREL and the University of Greenwich!
Together: An anthology from the COVID-19 pandemic is the fundraiser book compiled by authors Dev Aditya and Dr Pauldy Otermans, two former Brunel students. The publication collects the global human experiences, emotions and stories from the time of the pandemic. The 100 contributors, from 5 continents, 50% BAME authors, express themselves through poems, prose, letters and art.
The project was created to support and fund movements, frontline services and initiatives, while fighting the COVID-19 virus. The main beneficiary in the UK is the National Health Service (NHS) with 90% allocation of funds raised and 10% is donated monthly to selected non-UK organisations in need of resources to perform their duties. Visit the website for more information and here to donate.
When the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) challenged students to present their best dissertation work, Noah Ergen, an Politics and International Relations student, raised to the occasion. Under the current circumstances the student produced a pre-recorded video of his dissertation on the topic Hypersonic Missiles and the Revolution in Military Affairs. The video is available on OUR YouTube page, where you can also view other student projects. Noah is the recipient of a prize awarded by Dr Louise Owusu-Kwarteng, the project lead.
In addition to his academic achievements, Noah is also a virtual student federal service (VSFS) Intern with USAID producing research and analysis documents for distribution to multiple organisations throughout the U.S. Government.
Congratulations to Noah on the successful achievement!
Greenwich scholars Dr Giulia Zampini and Dr Camille Stengel (School of Law and Criminology) were involved in a research study evaluating student experiences of undergraduate modules taught inside prisons. Both academics evaluated a prison-university partnership with HMP Swaleside (a men’s prison) and the University of Kent, who run a final year undergraduate criminology module in Swaleside for both University of Kent students and men inside the prison.
The sign at the entrance to HMP Downview
This partnership is based on the global educational initiative known as the Inside Out Prison Exchange Programme. The Inside Out module involves an equal mix of ‘inside’ students (people in prison) and ‘outside’ students (people at university) studying alongside each other in the prison environment for one academic term. The second part of the research study involved colleagues from the University of Kent, evaluating the optional level five Inside Out module run in partnership with the University of Greenwich and HMP Downview (a women’ prison). Inside and outside students were interviewed twice: once before the modules started in order to gauge their expectations of the class, and a second time after the module ended.
Inside and outside students in the prison-university partnerships highlighted several key benefits they experienced during the Inside Out classes, including a feeling of connectedness across and among difference via their exposure to different view and opinions, increased confidence in their academic skills, and a more enhanced understanding of the criminal justice system. One University of Greenwich student said that Inside Out: “creates the kind of learning that couldn’t happen anywhere else”. A summary of the research findings can be found in the research briefing that was presented during a School of Law and Criminology Research Lunch in November 2019. The research evaluation was funded by the Peter Harris Trust and the University of Kent Faculty of Social Sciences Faculty Research Fund.
Congratulations to Dr Giulia Zampini and Dr Camille Stengel for the outcome of your collaboration and for stealing the spotlight!
Linear Algebra underlies almost all of modern science and technology. While it is a beautiful and accessible field of mathematics in its own right, it has far-reaching and powerful applications. Whether you want to work in the data driven world – Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data – or embark on further study in other areas of science and mathematics, Linear Algebra is a great enabler for your future success.
This Introduction to Linear Algebra course will be accessible to all. It assumes only basic high-school level mathematics and will quickly equip you with the mathematical foundations to ‘up-skill’ and thereby open up new opportunities. This course is particularly welcoming for people wanting to re-energise their skills and capacities for their future careers.
Professor Ed Wall proudly tweeted about the amazing work of one of his PhD students, who composed the flip book of The Landscapists AD. The book is available to buy online from Wiley or be accessed via Wiley Online Library. This is a great example of teacher / student collaboration at the University of Greenwich.
One of my amazing PhD students composed this flip book of The Landscapists AD. If you can read fast, enjoy. You can also buy from Wiley https://t.co/rSjxVfTecl or access via Wiley Online Library. Or contact contributors, I am sure they will share their articles 🙂 Love @AD_books. pic.twitter.com/k5UEZwVm5s
