LETS Lab is a newly formed research group in Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences in School of Law and Criminology
Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Director’s note
To many October is the month of pumpkin-spiced lattes, cosy jumpers and warm autumn colours. To the few geeks among you (we salute you, friends!) October will always be the month that the first message was sent over -what later became known as – “the internet”.
To us though, this will be the month that we published our first Newsletter, and we are damn proud of this! AtLETS Lab, we are fascinated by the ways in which the advancements in technology and science intersect with the law and challenge conventional legal thinking. We would like to share this passion with you through this Newsletter.
This is a new adventure for us and no doubt the road will be bumpy! Our editor-in-chief, Isabelle de Oliveira has worked hard to make sure that this newsletter together with a cuppa and a biscuit will be something to look forward to on the third Monday of the month. Enjoy our first Newsletter – this first edition is packed with news, exciting readings and job opportunities.
The University of Greenwich’s own Fire Safety Engineering Group featured in The Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) magazine.
Interviewed by the EU magazine, the leader of the FSEG Team, Professor Ed Galea gave an overview of the project, which was finalised in April 2020, including the challenges faced. GEO-SAFE is part of the multidisciplinary international project consisting of 107 researchers and end-users from 20 partners in 6 European countries (Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom) and Australia in a wide range of disciplinary fields (mathematics, modelling, fire safety and behavioural psychology, etc). The researchers collaborated across areas of expertise and with end users to understand the planning, logistical and real-time needs for addressing wildfires
The aim of GEO-SAFE is to create a network enabling the two regions to exchange knowledge, ideas and experience, thus boosting the progress of wildfires knowledge and the related development of innovative methods for dealing efficiently with such fires.
It’s Black History Month and for 31 days we celebrate the history, the culture, the significance and the legacy of the African Diaspora movement. In the UK, October highlights the achievements of the people and events that created this black history. The University of Greenwich and it’s Community embraces the spirit and invites you to join a series of events organised by the Centre for Applied Sociology Research and the Greenwich Student Union that showcases the importance of this annual celebration. Tickets to these events can be reserved in advance.
2020 has, so far, been a year marked by events that will live in our memories for generations to come. As we sailor through uncertain waters, we hold on to the past and the present with more conviction, after all, it’s all we have as given. As the Autumn leaves start to fall, announcing the beginning of a new season, we restore hope and embrace the gift of life.
This week the Applied Sociology Research Group, the Drama, Theatre and Performance Research Group, University of Greenwich Galleries and the Caribbean Social Forum are launching a collaborative online and gallery exhibition running throughout October for Black History Month.
The exhibition is a truly unique experience combining technologies such as Zoom and the traditional gallery experience to tell a story, you will encounter a layered experience of video, audio and imagery. The li ve experience will be in the Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Stockwell Street, is expected to take no more than 45 minutes to travel through, and each ticketed session will be restricted to six attendees in line with COVID-19 regulations. There will also be an online version of the gallery launching for those who are shielding or would prefer to join online. For more information and tickets visit the University of Greenwich Galleries website here and read on for a taster of what to expect from the teams:
From the Caribbean to the UK to Lockdown, we carry and re-remember stories of where we came from, journeys and first impressions. We do what we have always done to survive and thrive. We adapt and refresh skills. We innovate, create and re-create. This project uses visual art, sound, music and words to capture and celebrate the rich material of our unique Caribbeaness as reflected in our everyday lives.
Our journey ends with an exhibition which we invite you to travel through, marking the beginning of a new adventure. This exhibition appears both in a digital format* and at The Stephen Lawrence Gallery. Both formats of the exhibition are open to the public from 2 October, after an invited launch on 1October.
*The online exhibition will launch on October 23
PARTICIPANTS
Bernie Ferguson (Jamaica); Cynthia Gaynor-Bailey (Jamaica, Government Officer); Dolcie Gibbs (Jamaica, Nurse); Esther Precod (Barbados, Nurse); Fabian Best (Barbados, Nurse); Harry Franklyn (Barbados, Builder); Joycelyn Williams (Trinidad and Tobago, Entrepreneur); Denzil Winsburrow (St Vincent, Education); Neville McGregor (Jamaica, Builder); Sonia McIntosh, MBE (Jamaica, Civil Servant); Tony Durrant, MBE (St Vincent, Civil Servant); Velmar McGregor (Grenada, Education); Victor Turton (Barbados, Transport)
EXHIBITION TEAM
Adele Chambers (UoG Student Intern); Dave Hockham (Drama, Theatre and Performance Research Group, UoG); Ingrid Pollard, Dr. (Artist and Curator); Jean Campbell (Workshop Facilitator and Curator); Pamela Franklin (Caribbean Social Forum); Shamica Ruddock (Creative Digital Specialist); Tracey Reynolds, Prof. (Applied Sociology Research Group, UoG)
Dr Justine Baillie, a member of the Literature and Language Research Group – under the auspices of CREL (Centre for Research and Enterprise in Language) – has edited, and contributed an essay to, Global Morrison, a special issue of Oxford University Press’s journal Contemporary Women’s Writing. The issue is dedicated to the global significance of the Nobel prize-winning African-American novelist, Toni Morrison. Having been commissioned by the general editors of Contemporary Women’s Writing to lead the Global Morrison research group, Justine organised a very successful two-day international conference at the University of Greenwich in June 2017 and has now edited the proceedings for the OUP publication. Contributors examine Morrison’s literary articulations with the works of writers such as Italian novelist Umberto Eco, British novelist Zadie Smith, French writer Gisèle Pineau, Afro-Brazilian author Conceição Evaristo, and American poet Robin Coste Lewis.
The publication is timely, as recent Black Lives Matters activism has focussed attention on global histories of colonialism, slavery and racism. In her Introduction to the issue Justine writes that Morrison’s 1987 neo-slave narrative Beloved ‘was the catalyst for new interrogations of race, slavery, trauma and of colonialism’s displacements, which connect the local, specific experience with world history’. Justine’s contribution to Global Morrison, ‘Morrison and the Transnation: Toni Morrison, God Help the Child and Zadie Smith, Swing Time‘, brings together contemporary debates about the postracial and the post-black with conceptualizations of the transnation that destabilize the alignment of race and gender with nationalism. Morrison’s considerations of globalization, nationhood, and race in her essay TheOrigin of Others (2017) are used to illuminate the central concerns of her last work of fiction, God Help the Child (2015) and British writer Zadie Smith’s novel Swing Time (2017).
Future projects, coordinated within CREL by Literature and Research Seminar Series leaders Justine Baillie, Emily Critchley and Katarina Stenke, include the organisation of a conference on neo-slave narratives that will continue the work initiated at the Global Morrison conference at Greenwich. Ade Solanke’s script in hand performance of Phillis in London, her play about the first female African-American poet Phillis Wheatley’s visit to London in the eighteenth century, was a highlight of the Global Morrison conference of 2017 and Ade’s continued research on the eighteenth-century black presence in London will feature in the proposed neo-slave narratives conference.
Congratulations to Justine Baillie and all contributing authors for the well deserved spotlight!
We may have been locked down for the Spring and Summer but that has not hindered the research activities of our resident lawyers and criminologists. There have been a number of exciting publications launched over recent months and here is a round-up of some of the highlights, with links to each publication included.
Prof Olga Martin-Ortega and the Business, Human Rights and the Environment research group continue their march towards revolutionising the electronics industry in collaboration with the GoodElectronics Network and the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations. Their recently published report proposes a new approach to the urgent need for disclosure and transparency in the global electronics industry, and you can read more about it here.
Perhaps one of the most topical publications in our update comes from Dr Maria Kaspersson who has recently contributed a chapter called ‘‘You Always Hurt the One You Love’: Homicide in a Domestic Context‘ to the edited collection ‘Why We Kill: Understanding Violence Across Cultures and Disciplines’.
Finally, if audio content is what you’re here for then Dr Louise Hewitt has got you covered. Louise has recently launched her brand new Innocence Project London podcast where you can find an honest account of the organisation, how important their work is to a clinical legal education, and why it matters. You can find it here, and make sure you subscribe to catch every episode.
The WCCJN is part of the British Society of Criminology and they exist ‘to support scholarship on women, crime and criminal justice, and to foster research of the highest standard. In addition to promoting scholarship on women, crime and criminal justice, the network also aims to support women as criminological scholars’ and you can find out more about them here. We hope you will join us in congratulating Alex on her worthy first place prize.
The Office of Undergraduate Research proudly presents its 2020 publication, in collaboration with Combined Sociology Students. The book, ‘When the Personal Gets Political: Linking Student’ Sociological Autobiographies to Broader Social and Political Contexts’ is the second edition of a series of collated Autobiographies written by students and is available on request. Dr Louise Owusu-Kwarteng led the project.
Second edition
Simply put, we are in tricky times. Socially, political and economically, it has been like this for a while, 2020 has, however taken us to a whole new level. We’ve had COVID-19, the world wide global pandemic, which has had some serious ramifications for everyone. This has led to collective worries about our health, and that of others who are close to us. The lockdown meant we have not been able to see our families, in some cases for months. It has had a knock on effect for our students’ education, due to the switch to online teaching, which meant losing face to face contact with their tutors and peers.
For those who graduate this year, for many the lockdown means no physical graduation. There are concerns about opportunities for graduate employability, due to the downturn of the economy – also a result of the pandemic. Mental health is also a growing concern, especially since particularly since COVID. As noted in a Lancet case study, the mental health of the nation has deteriorated since the pandemic, largely because of the impacts of lockdown, fears of contracting the disease and loss of loved ones (www.lancet.com July 2020). Racism, though always prevalent in society, has reared its head in a virulent and violent way with the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, and many others due to police violence. Islamophobic hate crimes also continue, and like racism it operates at a micro and macro level, and on a day to day basis…
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.
