Category Archives: Research

Magazine of memories for aged-care residents

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Dr Rand Hazou (third on right, back row) with students who created Reminisce.

Meeting residents in an aged care facility and turning their conversations about the past into a magazine of memories proved to be a rewarding project for Massey University students as much as for the elderly residents they befriended in the process.

The Auckland-based expressive arts students enrolled in the Creativity in the Community course – part of the Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Communication degrees – spent time with residents at Aria Gardens home in Albany to explore their memories of life in the 1950s and ’60s. They collaborated with residents, including two with dementia, to create a one-off magazine, called Reminisce, which they launched earlier this month in a special event at Aria Gardens.

 

Student Ella Brookhammer said at the launch that the students hoped to “enable those that we worked with to look back on their lives fondly and reminisce with us. I personally spoke with Emma, who, as a long-time magazine reader, had many pieces of advice that aided me in the editing process for this project. Her suggestions included having interesting stories and most definitely a puzzle page!”

The magazine included articles and illustrations to reflect the interests and passions of the residents, such as former mechanic Alistair. He shared his memories and knowledge with student Liam Cairns for an article titled ‘A Look Inside the Mechanic’s Workshop’. It focused on the rare Kiwi icon, the Trekka, New Zealand’s only domestically designed and produced car.

In other articles, Patricia shared her travel stories and adventures, including getting engaged to her husband at the Taj Mahal in India under the moonlight. ‘It was the best day of my life,” she says in the article.

Vietnamese-born Hak, who moved to New Zealand in 1982, revealed his secret recipe for his favourite noodle dish, a Vietnamese-Cambodian fusion of herbs, spices, meat and vegetables.

Theatre lecturer and course convener Dr Rand Hazou, a specialist in applied and community theatre, says the course is designed to give students an opportunity to apply their creative skills and knowledge within a specific community context. “Working in groups under close supervision, students conceptualise, design, produce and then evaluate creative art projects within a specific community setting.”

Community engagement

“The course not only provides students with a creative and artistic outlet on a social issue – it helps to develop their project management and stakeholder engagement skills as well as their confidence,” he says. “Ultimately, it aims to show students that they can think of an idea for a creative community project, draft a brief, and apply for funding to help deliver a project to a community in need.”

By partnering with Aria Gardens, an aged care facility close to Massey’s campus in Albany, the students focused on delivering creative interventions that explored issues of positive ageing and dementia, Dr Hazou says.

“According to Alzheimers New Zealand, two out of every three New Zealanders are touched by dementia. For a third of New Zealanders, dementia is one of the things feared most about ageing. The partnership with Aria Gardens gave us a unique opportunity to engage with some of the issues surrounding ageing and dementia, and find creative interventions that challenge negative stereotypes within the wider community.”

Aria Gardens manager Paul France said of the project: “I loved the approach the students took with our residents. It was obvious they probed beneath the surface and understood their passions, motivators and things that bring them happiness.

“You could feel the pride in our residents as their contribution was showcased and it made them feel special being given their own two-page spread in such a prestigious and creative magazine.”

Dr Hazou emphasises that the course is designed to make students not just “work ready”, but what is being called in the pedagogical literature “world ready”. “It aims to develop their capacities as adaptive, engaged and responsible citizens,” he says.

These learning motivations are also reflected in Massey’s innovative BA programme, which was re-designed several years ago to include new core papers on cultural identity and belonging, local and global citizenship, and community engagement.

Published in Channel Magazine, Issue 100 July 2019.
By: Christine Young 
christine@channelmag.co.nz

Theatre and masks reveal life behind prison walls

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Mask artist Pedro Ilgenfritz and Dr Rand Hazou prepare for the performance of Walls That Talk. (Photo credit: Sarah Woodland).

Stories of prisoners’ lives usually stay locked up – but a group of male prisoners in Auckland has had the chance to study performance techniques and to share their experiences of being behind bars through a special theatre project led by Massey University.

Walls That Talk: Ngā Pātū Kōrero – a documentary theatre project led by applied theatre specialist Dr Rand Hazou – has been in the making for the past few months and culminated in a recent performance to a select audience at Auckland Prison, Paremoremo.

“Despite our high incarceration rates, we hear very little about the reality of prison life, and the personal experiences of those caught up in the criminal justice system remain largely invisible,” Dr Hazou says. “The aim of this theatre project was to challenge this invisibility by allowing the voices of prisoners to be heard on stage.”

 

Arts in prison a human rights issue

The theatre project provided a creative and therapeutic forum for prisoners to reflect on and better understand their life experiences both inside and beyond the prison walls. Dr Hazou says access to the arts in prison is also a human rights issue. “We need to be supporting engagement with the arts in prison because corrections is a system that often de-humanises people,” he says.

Comments from participating prisoners captured the impact of translating their stories into art.

“It added to my confidence,” according to one. “It’s given me more encouragement to do things, so a bit more direction of how I want to do things. So, when I see something, and I put my mind to it, I know I can do it, so it’s given me that motivation to keep pushing on. I didn’t really think I could do this stuff; it’s been a bit of an eye opener for me. It’s given me a bit of a sense of connection too, a sense of unity.”

Māori model of health to build new walls

In creating the production, Dr Hazou developed interview questions based on Te Whare Tapa Whā (the four cornerstones, or sides, of Māori health) – a model developed by Sir Mason Durie.

“We asked questions about physical health, emotional wellbeing, spirit or wairua, and family health. We then worked with [scriptwriter] Stuart Hoar to pull extracts from the transcribed interviews into a play that the men then performed. The play deals with issues of wellbeing from the experience of the prisoners in Te Piririti [sex offender treatment programme at Auckland Prison].”

Dr Hazou, a senior lecturer in theatre in the School of English and Media Studies at the Auckland campus, says the indigenous model of wellbeing, using the metaphor of the wharenui or meeting house with four walls, was central to the theatre work. “These walls include taha tinana [physical health], taha wairua [spiritual health], taha hinengaro [mental/emotional health], and taha whānau [family health]. Within this holistic model, each wall is necessary to the strength of the building.

Walls That Talk: Ngā Pātū Kōrero is part of a larger project called Prison Voices, a creative collaboration with Dr Sarah Woodland from Griffith University in Brisbane. It includes recorded interview material with the participants at Auckland Prison to be edited into a creative audio work or radio drama.

Dr Hazou has worked across a variety of creative and community contexts. These include in Palestine in 2004, when he was commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to travel to the Occupied Territories to work as a theatre consultant running workshops for Palestinian youth. His research on asylum seeker and refugee theatre has been published in international journal articles.

He is coordinating the Performing Arts and Justice Symposium (September 5-6) at Massey’s Auckland campus in Albany to bring together performers, arts practitioners, researchers and justice professionals to explore the potential of theatre and the creative arts to transform the justice system.

Visit the webpage for information on keynotes and registration. http://bit.ly/2IR9CuE

Published in The Channel Magazine, Issue 101 August 2019.

By: Christine Young 
christine@channelmag.co.nz

Inmates explore morals in Greek theatre

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Inmates performed an abridged version of an Ancient Greek play, using puppets.

Is pride the ultimate crime? It is a big moral question that a group of inmates at Auckland Prison explored when they performed an Ancient Greek play using puppets, in a partnership between the prison and Massey University.

The project involved seven inmates who staged an abridged version of Antigone, by Sophocles (written around 441 BC) last week. The aim was to cultivate the performance skills and confidence of the participants, says Dr Rand Hazou. He is a senior lecturer in theatre, based in the School of English and Media Studies at the Auckland campus. Along with storyteller and theatre-maker Derek Gordon, he led the Theatre Behind Bars project at the prison in Paremoremo through his interest in community theatre and social change.

He says theatre can provide a constructive platform through which prison inmates are able to explore deeper personal, family and social issues, giving them the opportunity to develop creative and communication skills, as well as understandings of human behaviour through storytelling.

The production, Puppet Antigone, by the group called the Unit 9 Theatre Group, built on a series of introductory theatre workshops Dr Hazou organised at the prison in May and June. The latter was facilitated by Canadian theatre director David Diamond, artistic and managing director of the Vancouver based company Theatre for Living. “As a result of these initial engagements, a small theatre group has developed at the prison that is interested in continuing to engage with theatre practice,” Dr Hazou says.

Inmates at Auckland Prison at Paremoremo performing the Greek play, Antigone. (photo/supplied)

Old play but relevant story

He says the show went well, and the response of the 40 audience members – made up of prison staff and invited guests, including some Massey staff, and a large contingent of inmates – was overwhelming.

“This was wicked! I’ve never done anything like this before, and even though it is an old play, we understood the story,” one of the actors said. “I’ve also learned about the power of standing still in one place when acting, but using my arms, voice, and facial expressions, especially my eyes, to communicate with the audience.”

Kellie Paul, Principal Advisor Rehabilitation and Learning at Auckland Prison, says that participating in Antigone was “a powerful and challenging experience for the men involved in the Theatre Behind Bars project.

“They really had to push the boundaries. The actors also had to memorise complex lines in a short period of time, and learn how to manipulate puppets for the first time to add dramatic effect to their performance. Auckland Prison is privileged to have access to the expertise of Rand and Derek to help the prisoners explore their strengths, improve their learning and education, and develop their self-confidence.”

While the utterances and dilemmas of Ancient Greek characters may seem far removed from the realities of New Zealand prison life in the 21st century, Dr Hazou says the play provides “a creative opportunity for inmates to cultivate their emotional, physical and literacy skills by adapting a classic written play into performance.”

After all, the play hinges on a key quote from Tiresias, one of the main characters: “All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.”

The play tells the story of Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, who insists on giving her dead brother, Polynices, a form of ritual burial in keeping with divine laws. But her brother has been ruled a traitor by her uncle, King Creon, who has decreed that anyone caught giving burial rites will be executed. The play questions whether Antigone should follow her heart and insist that family responsibilities and religious rites are more important than the city’s law. Or should she bow to her uncle and king and follow the responsibilities expected of a citizen to the state?

“The play raises important questions about ethics, standing up for what is right, and not bowing to authority. But it also raises questions about pride, which is described in the play as ‘the only crime’ that men make,” Dr Hazou says.

Kellie Paul (Principal Advisor Rehabiltation and Learning at Auckland Prison); Derek Gordon and Dr Rand Hazou (Massey Unversity); with Simon Chaplin (Assistant Prison Director, Auckland Prison). (photo/supplied)

Why the play Antigone?

By exploring the primal and universal desire to respect the dead with due rites and the sacred obligation to provide the dead a dignified transition from the land of the living to the world of ancestors, the play holds cultural resonances with Aotearoa, he says.

“Māori tikanga are well-known for rituals and protocols to deal with the dead, and the conflict in Antigone would be immediately recognised by Māori and Pākehā alike. The play also highlights the conflict between men and women in a patriarchal society and demonstrates the harsh and tragic consequences for one woman who decides to stand up to this patriarchal power.”

Becoming Penguin, a Performance Walk.

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King Penguin Couple. Photo credit David Stanley (Creative Commons 2.0)

King Penguin Couple. Photo: David Stanley (Creative Commons 2.0)

In your white shirts and black tails, in your navy-blue dresses or in wetsuits and flippers or anything ‘penguin’ from your wardrobe please come and join us on a waddle, a ‘becoming penguin’ performance walk. If you have nothing penguin in your wardrobe, come with a penguin state of mind and we will supply you with some penguin apparel.

As part of Still Waving: Climate Change Theatre Action Aotearoa, performance artist Catherine Bagnall will lead the walk from Parliament grounds up to Massey University Wellington, where the climate change play ‘The Penguins’ will be performed, along with other climate action plays from Aotearoa and the world. Walking from Parliament into the community symbolises the theme of Climate Change Theatre Action 2017 – that there are steps communities can take to act together and make a positive difference, even when governments won’t. And that every step, however small, is important.
It’s free to join the Becoming Penguin performance walk: if you then want to stay for the theatre action show, tickets to see the plays are available by small koha to Generation Zero and can be purchased from https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2017/still-waving-climate-change-theatre-action-aotearoa-2017/wellington
To join ‘Becoming Penguin’, meet at the Cenotaph next to Parliament Grounds at 1pm on Monday October 23.
Catherine Bagnall is an artist whose work focuses on the edges of fashion studies and its intersection with performance practices. Testing the bounds of self through performative acts of ‘dressing up’, her research offers new modes of experience that use performance to explore the possibility of becoming ‘other’, a different species for example. In the context of questions about humanity’s relationship to the planetary ecosystem and how we categorise ‘other’ species, ‘Becoming Penguin’ explores ideas about the end of the Anthropocene and the beginning of the post-human world.
See more about Still Waving: Climate Change Theatre Action Aotearoa 2017 at https://www.facebook.com/events/163701054197372/
Still Waving is part of the worldwide series of CCTA readings and performances of short climate change plays presented biennially in support of the United Nations Conference of the Parties. CCTA is organised globally by the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, NoPassport Theatre Alliance, The Arctic Cycle and Theatre Without Borders. CCTA Aotearoa is brought to you by Massey University School of English & Media Studies, in partnership with Massey University Ngā Pae Māhutonga – the School of Design, Generation Zero, and Pukeahu ki Tua: Think Differently Wellington.

Research Round-up – July, August and September

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A Book published, and a play:

  • Ingrid Horrocks launched a co-edited book (with Cherie Lacey), Extraordinary Anywhere: Essays on Place from Aotearoa New Zealand (Wellington, Victoria  University Press, 2016) at Unity Books, Wellington,  on Tuesday 26 July. http://vup.victoria.ac.nz/extraordinary-anywhere-essays-on-place-from-aotearoa-new-zealand/ Three essays by School of English and Media Studies staff are included in the collection:
    • Horrocks, I.A. with Cherie Lacey, “Writing Here” (8-20).
    • Horrocks, I.A. “Writing Pukeahu: A Year (and More) of Walking in Place” (78-93).
    • Ross, J. “On the Road to Nowhere: Revisiting Samuel Butler’s Erewhon (131-45).
    • The book is also a collaboration with two designer researchers from the College of Creative Arts, Jo Bailey and Anna Brown.

Ingrid Horrocks discussed the collection with Wallace Chapman and Professor Harry Ricketts on Radio NZ: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday

Ingrid

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Associate Professor Elspeth Tilley’s play ‘Waiting for Go’, was performed at the ‘Short+Sweet International Short Play Festival 2016 Canberra Season, Week 1 Top 20 plays’, Canberra Theatre Centre, 9-12 August.

Elspeth

‘Waiting for Go’ at the Canberra Short & Sweet Festival, featuring Ben Harris and Samuel Gordon Bruce

 

 

 

 

 

 

A number of articles and book chapters appeared by English and Media Studies staff:

  • Hazou, Rand T. (2016, January 1). “Performing digital: Multiple perspectives on a living archive” [Book Review]. Australasian Drama Studies, (68), 209-213.
  • Hazou, Rand. (2016, January 1). Real men at play: Massive Company’s the Brave. Australasian Drama Studies, (68), 97-117.
  • Gruber, D.R. (2016). “A review of ‘American Lobotomy: A Rhetorical History’ by Jenell Johnson” [Book Review] Configurations2: 263-265.  See http://muse.jhu.edu/article/626106
  • Ross, Jack. “Company.” In An Encounter in the Global Village: Selected Stories from the 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English (English-Chinese). Ed. Jin Hengshan. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, July 2016. 366-77.
  • Ross, Jack. “Eketahuna.” In Influence and Confluence: East and West. A Global Anthology on the Short Story. Ed. Maurice A. Lee. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, July 2016. 388-95.
  • Simon Sigley published two videos, Loren from Wellington and Ken from Dunedin in the interviewprojectnz.com series of portraits of ‘ordinary’ New Zealanders.
  • Steer, Philip had an essay published: ‘Colonial Ecologies’, in A History of New Zealand Literature, (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
  • Huffer, Ian had an article published: ‘New Zealand film on demand: searching for national cinema online’ in Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, Vol 30, Issue.
  • Associate Professor Elspeth Tilley had an article published: ‘Theatre in the Age of Climate Change: An Educator’s View’, in Howlround: A knowledge commons by and for the theatre community, Boston, MA: Office of the Arts, Emerson College.


Staff made connections and gave presentations around New Zealand and around the world:

  • Dr Thom Conroy was a panel member at the Hamilton Book Month Fiction Panel, Hamilton, 17 August.
  • Dr Kevin Glynn travelled to Santa Muerte to conduct Marsden funded fieldwork and also to [participate in a workshop on neoliberalism and urban poverty.
  • Associate Professor Joe Grixti presented: ‘Indigenous Media and the Disjunctive Flows of Globalization’, and chaired a panel at the ‘XI European Conference on Social and Behavioural Sciences’, Sapienza University, Rome, 1 – 4 September.
  • Dr Ingrid Horrocks presented ‘“I am strangely displaced”: Troubling Romantic Mobilities’, at the ‘North-American Society for the Study of Romanticism Conference’, University of California, Berkeley, USA, 11-14 August.
  • Dr Mary Paul presented: ‘Substitution and seclusion in Life Writing teaching’, at ‘Ahi Ka: Building the Fire’creative writing conference, AUT, Auckland, 10 September.
  • Dr Jack Ross attended a short story conference in Shanghai from 12-16 July 2016 and gave the following presentations:

Jack Ross: “Settler & Speculative Fiction in the NZ Short Story: A Tale of Two Anthologies,” a paper given at the 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English: “Influence and Confluence in the Short Story: East and West” (East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 13-16 July 2016).

Jack Ross: Member of Plenary Panel on “Influence and Confluence in the Short Story: East and West” at  the 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English, with Dr Hensheng Jin (chair) and fellow-panellists Fang Fang, Yu Hua, Zhao Mei, Su Tong, Bi Feiyu, Robert Olen Butler, and Evelyn Conlon (East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 13-16 July 2016).

Jack Ross: Member of Panel on “‘The V word’ – Voice in the New Zealand Short Story” at  the 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English: “Influence and Confluence in the Short Story: East and West,” with Tracey Slaughter (chair) and fellow-panellists Bronwyn Lloyd, Frankie McMillan and Leanne Radojkovich (East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 13-16 July 2016).

Jack

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Dr Jack Ross presented: ‘What should a magazine called Poetry NZ look like?’, and gave a Poetry Reading: ‘Poetry Adventures on and off the page’, at the University of Canberra Poetry Festival, 6-16 September.
  • Dr Philip Steer presented a co-authored paper: ‘Signatures of the Carboniferous: Coal Power in the Age of Man’, at the ‘V-Cologies conference’, Davis University, California, 16-17 September.
  • Dr Sy Taffel’s film: ‘Connect to the Heartland’, was screened as part of a Palmerston North-based Massey Residence Halls film night, 27 September and at Takaro Rotary Club in Palmerston North, 29 September.
  • Dr Kim Worthington presented a co-authored paper: ‘Reading Coetzee’s Women’, at a Conference hosted by Monash University in Prato, Italy, 27-29 September.
  • Associate Professor Bryan Walpert gave a presentation, ‘Border Crossers: Identity, Place and New Zealand Voice(s)’, at the ‘Ahi Ka: Building the Fire’ creative writing conference, AUT, Auckland, 10 September.


The School hosted a conference on Creative Writing: Building the Fire

  • On 10 and 11 September, Dr Thom Conroy, English and Media Studies, organised ‘Ahi Ka: Building the Fire’, the second creative writing colloquium sponsored by the Aotearoa Creative Writing Research Network. The colloquium was co-organised with the Auckland University of Technology and held at their city campus. The conference committee consisted of Dr Thom Conroy and Associate Professor Bryan Walpert from the School of English and Media Studies, and James George from AUT. The keynote speaker was the Pasifika poet and lecturer Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh.

Selina

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ahi Ka: Building the Fire keynote speaker Selina Tusitala Marsh     

 

Thom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Thom Conroy at ‘Ahi Ka: Building the Fire’

 

And hosted events that allowed others to connect and imagine together:

  • July 1 saw 187 high school students and teachers hosted on Wellington campus for the Create1World Global Citizenship and Creative Activism Conference. Attendees heard from 16 national and international creative activists via a global Zoom linkup, heard the Kiwi students who were chosen as finalists in the national #Create1World competition present their song-writing, performance, media and creative writing entries for judging, and got together to brainstorm creative solutions to planetary problems, which will be presented as a report to political leaders.  Radio New Zealand covered the conference here: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/standing-room-only/audio/201807707/creative-activism

Lizzie

Lizzie Marvelly, BA graduate and guest judge, with finalists from Wellington College; a team of six performers from St Cuthbert’s College in Auckland took out first place in the performance category with their short play ‘Stories of Syria’.

 

 

 

 

 

  • The School’s series, ‘Creativity at the Centre’, presented award winning Austrian author Julienne van Loon at the Manawatu Campus on 17 August.

AOW

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Hosted ‘Chicago Style Improvised Theatre: A Weekend Immersion Workshop’, in the Wellington Theatre Lab on 12 August.
  • On 28 September, ‘Pukeahu ki Tua Think Differently Wellington’ sponsored: ‘Imagining Together’, a multidisciplinary panel discussion about creativity at Wellington campus organised by Associate Professor Elspeth Tilley, School of English and Media Studies, Ms Stella Robertson, College of Creative Arts, and Dr Martina Battisti, Massey Business School. The panellists: Juliette Hogan, (Fashion Designer),  David Clayton, (Animation Supervisor, Weta Digital), Jason O’Hara, (Artist/Photographer), Greg Ellis, (Theatre/Comedy), Dr  Ingrid Horrocks, School of English and Media Studies, (Creative Writer), and Warren Maxwell, (Musician), explored the differences and similarities in their creative process through a discussion of risk and uncertainty in creative careers.

 

Imagining

 

‘Imagining Together’, Wellington Campus, 28 September

 

 

 

 

 

Spotlight on Tutor Staff Research

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In this post we focus on some of the 2016 successes of our brilliant tutors. Our English and Media Studies tutors have been especially active in the creative areas.

Bronwyn Lloyd participated in the Conference Influence and Confluence in the Short Story: East and West at East China Normal University, Shanghai (13-16 July, 2016). Bronwyn was part of a panel discussion on “Voice in the New Zealand Short Story” with fellow writers Tracey Slaughter, Jack Ross, Frankie MacMillan and Leanne Radjokovich. She was a panellist in a plenary session discussing the question, “Who Owns the Text – The Writer or the Scholar?” with a group of international academics and writers. Bronwyn also read several of her short stories, including the two published in the conference anthology from her nearly completed collection of autofiction, “A Slow Alphabet”: “I for Indifference” and “H for Habit”.

A link to Jack Ross’s blogpost about their trip to Shanghai can be found here: http://mairangibay.blogspot.co.nz/2016/07/jack-bronwyns-shanghai-adventure.html


Tim Upperton’s poetry book was a finalist in the Ockham NZ Book Awards:

Tim

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1603/S00164/ockham-new-zealand-book-awards-finalists-announced.htm

http://www.haunuipress.co.nz/the-night-we-ate-the-baby.html

Tim also published poems in Sport 44 (Victoria University Press) http://vup.victoria.ac.nz/sport-44-new-zealand-new-writing-2016/ and New Zealand Books, Autumn 2016 http://nzbooks.org.nz/2016/contents/issue-113-autumn-2016/ as well as in the Annual (Gecko Press) for children, http://www.annualannual.com/#/new-page-5/ and a number of reviews and articles: Metro, NZ Listener, The Spinoff, Radio NZ National.


Sarah Laing published a graphic memory and an anthology:

Sarah

Mansfield and Me: A Graphic Memoir http://vup.victoria.ac.nz/mansfield-and-me-a-graphic-memoir/http://vup.victoria.ac.nz/mansfield-and-me-a-graphic-memoir/

Three Words: An Anthology of Aotearoa/NZ Women’s Comics http://www.beatnikshop.com/products/three-words

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matthew Harris’s most recent film MADAM BLACK has screened at over 100 festivals and won 30 awards to date, including the Prix du Public at Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival – FRA (2016), Best Short at Cannes Cinéma des Antipodes – FRA (2016), Directors Choice at the Rhode Island Film Festival – USA (2015), as well as Audience Awards at São Paulo International Short Film Festival – Brazil (2016), Leeds International Film Festival – UK (2015), Cleveland International Film Festival (2016), and the NZ International Film Festival (2015).

https://vimeo.com/131468062

http://www.nzfilm.co.nz/key-people/matthew-harris

Fiona Shearer published a book chapter and co-authored an article:

Shearer, F. (2016). Snapshot – Literacy Aotearoa: Combining formal and informal public relations methods. In J. Johnston, Public relations and the public interest.  New York: Routledge.

And co-authored piece on Puke Ahu Project forthcoming –

Peace, R. & Shearer, F. (forthcoming) Puke Ahu: Articulating a place-based, university campus identity. Kotuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences

And

Tim Corballis, amongst other things, published a number of book chapters, had a collaborative video artwork shown at the 5th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition 2016, and published half a dozen reviews for www.circuit.org.nz/blog.

Corballis, T. (2016). Confronted Worlds: Collaboration as the Gap between Art and Literature. In Sondra Bacharach, Siv B. Fjærestad & Jeremy Neil Booth (Eds.). Collaboration in the Twenty-First Century. Milton Park, Abingdon: Routledge.

Corballis, T. (2016). There is No Up, There is No Down. In Ingrid Horrocks & Cherie Lacey (Eds.). Extraordinary Anywhere: Essays from Aotearoa New Zealand. Wellington: Victoria University Press.

Corballis, T. (2016). Letters from Reality: The Art of Gregory O’Brien. Art New Zealand, 158, 82-85.

Corballis, T., Machine Wind, video artwork, Negative Horizon—the 5th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition 2016, Hong-Gah Museum, Taipei 2016 (with Fiona Amundsen)

2 Readings/panel discussions, Ruapehu Writers’ Festival, Ohakune, 2016

Reading with video accompaniment, LitCrawl, Potocki Paterson Gallery, 2016

 

And there’s a lot going on we don’t list here. It’s been a good year (in some ways at least).

Research Roundup – May and June

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Another 2 books, a special issue of a journal, and a play

Dr Thom Conroy had his second novel published: The Salted Air published by Random House Books New Zealand. The Salted Air was ranked in the top ten (2nd, 6th, 9th then 8th) on the Nielsen Weekly Bestsellers List during the month of June peaking at number two for the week ending 4 June.

Salted Air

http://sites.massey.ac.nz/expressivearts/2016/05/04/the-salted-air-a-new-novel-by-thom-conroy/

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/standing-room-only/audio/201803396/the-salted-air

 

 

 

 

Associate Professor Angie Farrow’s full-length play The Politician’s Wife had its debut at Palmerston North’s Centrepoint Theatre mid-June and at Wellington’s BATS Theatre at the end of June. The play was shortlisted for the Adam Prize 2016, the country’s top playwriting award.

Politician's Wife

 

http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=59E135DD-FAA2-6B5E-57B9-CDB922AFE6E3

 

 

Associate Professor Lisa Emerson had a book published online: The forgotten tribe: Scientists as writers, by the WAC clearinghouse and the University Press of Colorado.

Forgotten Tribe

http://wac.colostate.edu/books/emerson/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Kim Worthington, Dr Celina Bortolotto, Dr Allan Meek and Dr Jenny Lawn co‐edited an issue of the Australian e‐journal borderlands on the theme, ‘The Limits of Responsibility,’ and co‐wrote the introduction.

Three journal articles from English & Media Studies were included:

Lawn, J., Bortolotto, C., Worthington, K., & Meek, A. (2015). ‘The limits of responsibility’;

Meek, A. (2015). ‘Cultural trauma, biopolitics and the limits of responsibility’; and

Tutor Mr Nick Allen’s honours essay: ‘Memory Shards: A Site of Hope in post‐Apartheid South Africa’.

http://www.borderlands.net.au/issues/vol14no2.html

 

A number of articles and book chapters appeared by English and Media Studies Staff

Dr David Gruber had an article published: ‘Reinventing the brain, revising neurorhetorics: Phenomenological networks contesting neurobiological interpretations’, in Rhetoric Review 35(3): 239-253.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/07350198.2016.1179004

Dr Ingrid Horrocks and Dr Philip Steer had a book chapters published in A History of New Zealand Literature, ed. Mark Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Horrocks, I. Chapter One: ‘A World of Waters: Imagining, Voyaging, Embarkation.’

Steer, P. Chapter Six: ‘Colonial ecologies: Guthrie-Smith’s Tutira and writing in the settled environment.’

History of Lit

 

http://www.cambridge.org/nz/academic/subjects/literature/english-literature-general-interest/history-new-zealand-literature?format=HB

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Ingrid Horrocks had an article and accompanying interview published: ‘Something else is going on, an interaction, an exchange: Martin Edmond’s Painted Lives,’ in Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 38.3 (Summer 2015): 491‐511.

https://uhpjournals.wordpress.com/tag/ingrid-horrocks/

 

More Creative Outputs and Recognitions 

Associate Professor Angie Farrow’s play: ‘The Real Thing’, was performed at the Inspirato International Theatre Festival in Toronto in early June.

Associate Professor Bryan Walpert: had three poems published in the literary journal Ika 4, edited by Anne Kennedy; and gave an invited reading of his work at the Ika launch in Auckland on 14 May.

Associate Professor Bryan Walpert, School of English and Media Studies, was invited to join the Academy of New Zealand Literature.

A new short play addressing climate change by Associate Professor Elspeth Tilley, School of English and Media Studies, called ‘Waiting for Go’, was shortlisted at the Short and Sweet play festivals in both Brisbane and Canberra during June. Each festival receives several hundred entries, with only the top 10% shortlisted.

 

Staff gave presentations and talks both local and international

Dr Pansy Duncan presented: ‘Exploding the Frame’, at the ‘Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand’ conference, Sydney, Australia, 29 June – 1 July.

Dr David Gruber presented: ‘Suasive Speech: A Stronger Defense of Rhetoric and Futures for Cognitive Poetics’, at the ‘Cognitive Futures in the Humanities’ Conference’, Helsinki, Finland, 13-15 June.

Dr Rand Hazou presented: ‘Presenting the Theatrical Past: Interplays of Artefacts, Discourses and Practices’, at the International Federation of Theatre conference in Stockholm, Sweden, 13-17 June.

 Dr Nick Holm presented: ‘Against the Assault of Laughter: Differentiating Critical and Resistant Humour,’ at the Comedy and Critical Thought Conference, 3 and 4 May, University of Kent, UK.

Dr Mary Paul was a panel member on: ‘The Great Kiwi Classic Face‐Off ‐ speaking for New Zealand writer Robin Hyde as the Great Kiwi Classic Author,’ at the Auckland Writers Festival, 14 May.

Dr Erin Mercer presented: ‘Haunting and Spectrality in the Work of Jack Kerouac’, at the ‘Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand’ conference, Sydney, Australia, 29 June – 1 July.

 

And we hosted a number of research events

Dr Philip Steer organised and hosted an exciting visit by Professor John Plotz, Brandeis University, to the Manawatu campuse. https://www.brandeis.edu/departments/english/faculty/plotz.html

Amongst other events, on Monday 30 May Professor Plotz ran a Masterclass on the topic, “The Anthropocene and Method in the Humanities”.

This was part of a cluster of events on The Anthropocene held in May and June, in collaboration with Massey’s new Political Ecology Research Centre (PERC). Dr Nick Holm and Dr Sy Taffel also gave talks on the topic of the Anthropocene as well as presenting at the College’s ‘Humanities Engagement Series’ focussing on ‘The Land: Resilience and Co-Existence’. These events were run as part of the W. H. Oliver Humanities Research Academy series over the month of June.

PERC: http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=E8028EB9-DEFB-B0D4-EA0D-96D15684918D

Humanities Research Academy: http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/learning/departments/centres-research/oliver-academy/oliver-academy_home.cfm

Kia Mau Hui: on June 14, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences facilitated and hosted an important international indigenous theatre hui at the Wellington campus, involved Associate Professor Elspeth Tilley. The hui aimed to enable local indigenous artists to connect with indigenous festival directors and staff from Australia and Canada and to develop future collaborations.  There were 32 attendees including a number of international indigenous artists. The hui provided an important development opportunity for local theatre artists to pitch to international festival staff.

 Kai Mau Hui

 

 

 

 

 

The School also hosted presentations on various campuses as part of the W.H. Oliver Research Academy Research Series:

You can see the full programme and recordings of some of the seminars here.

Research Roundup

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We’ve been busy. Here’s a snapshot of some of the research that’s come out of the School in the first four months of 2016.

Three staff books!

Dr Pansy Duncan had a book published: The Emotional Life of Postmodern Film. Routledge, 2016.

Dr Jenny Lawn, J. had a book published: Neoliberalism and cultural transition in New Zealand literature, 1984-2008: Market fictions. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016.

Dr Allen Meek had a book published: Biopolitical Media: Catastrophe, Immunity and Bare Life. Routledge, 2016.

Pansy Book Jenny Book Allen Book

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A number of exciting articles and book chapters by English and Media Studies staff

Dr Rand Hazou co-authored an article: ‘E(Lab)orating Performance: Transnationalism and Blended Learning in the Theatre Classroom’, Research in Drama Education 20.4. 1 December.

Dr Jenny Lawn co-edited a special journal issue on Neoliberal Culture/The Cultures of Neoliberalism: Sites: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies 12. 1. She also wrote the introduction:  ‘Introduction: Neoliberal culture/the cultures of neoliberalism’. Sites 12.1, pp. 1-29.

Dr David Gruber had an article published: ‘The extent of engagement, the means of invention: Measuring debate about mirror neurons in the humanities and social sciences’.  Journal of Science Communication 15.2, A01. (February 2016).

Dr Nicholas Holm had an article published: ‘Humour as edge-work: aesthetics, joke-work and tendentiousness in Tosh.0’, Comedy Studies 7.1 (2016)

Dr Simon Sigley had an article published: ‘Programming (Bi)Cultural Memory: Remembrance, reinvention, and Commemorative Vigilance at the Film Archive, Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision’, Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture 16.1 (2016). http://reconstruction.eserver.org/Issues/161/Sigley.shtml

Dr Philip Steer had an essay published: ‘Colonial Gothic’, in The World Novel until 1950, ed. Ralph Crane, Jane Stafford, and Mark Williams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).


Staff presentations both local and international

Dr Kevin Glynn presented: ‘Costeño Media: Struggles for the Meanings of Blackness and Indigeneity on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast’, at ‘The Meaning of Blackness II’, International Conference, University of Costa Rica, 15 – 18 February.

Dr Kevin Glynn also presented: ‘Proliferating Nicaraguan Mediascapes: The FSLN, indigenous rights and media convergence’, at the Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual conference, San Francisco, USA, 29 March – 2 April.

Dr Alex Bevan presented: ‘Unglamorous Work: Media Labor’s Discontents’ and was a panel chair at the ‘Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference’, Atlanta, USA, 30 March – 3 April.

Dr Thom Conroy and Dr Ingrid Horrocks were panellists at the Ruapehu Writer’s Festival, Ohakune, 17 – 21 March. Thom spoke on a panel on ‘Fiction and Biography’ and Ingrid on one on ‘The Desert Road’, and on a special panel convened to discuss her forth-coming co-edited collection: Extraordinary Anywhere: Essays on Place from Aotearoa New Zealand.

and

The School hosted presentations on various campuses as part of the W.H. Oliver Research Academy Research Series

Friday Feb 26     Massimiano Bucchi, Newton’s Chicken. Communicating Science in the Kitchen

Friday 22 April    Nicola Legat, “Will you publish, um, books?” The first six months of the new Massey University Press and how it can support Humanities.

Friday 29 April    Leleiga Taito, An in-depth ethnographic study of the values, communication norms and safety attitudes of snowboarders.  This was part of her BC Honours Research.  Ms Taito received a GNS Science Scholarship and a College Summer Scholarship to produce a detailed written report and a series of video outputs.

Friday 6 May      Kyle Powys Whyte, Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change: Basic Issues.

Tthe full programme and recordings of some of the seminars are available on the School of English and Media Studies website.

Lahar awareness research will help save lives – Massey University

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Many skiers and snowboarders on Mt Ruapehu do not know how to get to safety if a potentially deadly lahar came rampaging down the mountainside, research from Massey graduate Leleiga Taito shows.

Source: Lahar awareness research will help save lives – Massey University

Many skiers and snowboarders on Mt Ruapehu do not know how to get to safety if a potentially deadly lahar came rampaging down the mountainside, research from Massey graduate Leleiga Taito shows.

It is believed to be the first international research that has documented a disconnect between safety information about lahars (the volcanic flow of ash, snow and rocks) and the key 18-30 year-old age group of young adventure sport enthusiasts.

“Many people didn’t know what a lahar is, or that they may have less than two minutes from the warning siren to escape,” Ms Taito says.

The Upper Hutt woman, who is the first in her family to graduate from university, will be conferred with a Bachelor of Communication honours degree (First Class) at the Michael Fowler Centre on Thursday.

Her research, investigating barriers at Whakapapa ski field that may be stopping young people from following safety instructions, was partly made possible by the awarding of a GNS Science scholarship arranged in partnership with Massey’s School of English and Media Studies and the Joint Centre for Disaster Research. It is hoped Massey students will help to develop further resources based on Ms Taito’s research to address the issue in the future.

There are plans also for Ms Taito’s findings to be used by GNS Science, the Department of Conservation and Ruapehu Alpine Lifts to communicate better with young skiers and snowboarders.

Twice-yearly tests of the Eruption Detection System over the past five years showed up to 50 people per test failed to get out of the valleys.  Those people were asked to fill in a survey, which showed some didn’t know they were in danger zones, or thought they had traversed high enough out of the valleys to be out of danger.

Ms Taito had only ever been on the snow once, joking: “Samoans don’t do snow”. She spent three months working for the ski lift operator while living at Whakapapa village at Mt Ruapehu last winter. Describing herself as a “Samoan population of one”, she conducted in-depth research observing the behaviour of 257 mountain users and interviewing 29 of them about their awareness of lahar risk.

She found the sub-culture of young experienced snowboarders and skiers have their own lingo and use euphemisms that normalise crashing and unsafe behaviour on the mountain. They deal with serious situations such as accidents, hazards and emergencies using humour and friendly teasing.

“Skiing is such a hazardous sport and they become desensitized to the danger factor. They are there to have fun and don’t want to think about anything happening- they call it a buzz kill. Anti-authoritarian framing is the norm for a subculture such as adventure sports enthusiasts,” she says.

The research participants offered a range of safety suggestions, including better locational identification on trail maps and creating a cellphone app that provides safety information.

Ms Taito attended a pre-season briefing with emergency service staff from the mountain to share her insights.  Her recommendations include better signage and using digital technology to inform and remind people they are on an active volcano and what to do when the lahar warning siren sounds.

“Young skiers and snowboarders’ love of speed could also be turned into a positive communication feature,” she says.

Safety communications could tap into their own group values by featuring a great skier speeding down the mountain contrasted with the speed of a lahar to show that nobody can outrun a lahar.”

After five years of study at Massey, Ms Taito is looking forward to visiting family in Australia, going back to the mountain to see her new snow buddies and looking for her first permanent communications’ job.  But first of all there is going to be a big party this week when her large family celebrates her graduation. And she hopes to get her family up to the snow this ski season.