Talking Heads- Horror and the Gothic: Unleash your Inner Zombie

Dr Linnie Blake discusses zombies, horror and the value of Humanities
Words by Sophie Bannister

Gothicist and Principal Lecturer in Film Dr Linnie Blake

Welcome to the very first Talking Heads, where we explore why the Humanities matter in today's society. In this week's instalment, Student Press Office journalist Sophie Bannister talks to Dr Linnie Blake and Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes about their exciting upcoming Gothic week, their work with Horror, and how zombies are taking over our television screens.

You can find out more information about Dr Linnie Blake by clicking here. You can also discover more information about the subjects discussed by accessing Linnie here. 

Sustainability Fair Shows Being Green Matters

Sustainability Fair - Tuesday, 26th February, Geoffrey Manton Building, MMU

Words by Graham Murray

Tuesday's sustainability fair in Geoffrey Manton's atrium showed what it really means to be green, with the theme of being aware of one's impact on the environment ever recurruing. The event featured various stalls from oxfam, to a bike-powered-smoothie-making stall! The event gave being green a friendly face.

Featured at the fair was the environment team, spearheading their plan for carbon literacy – simply keeping people aware of their direct impact on the environment. They also gave the public a chance to find out their carbon footprint, which was in the form of a small competition. Find out more about their message and carbon literacy on their website here. Also at the fair was tankcoffee. With their motto ‘Trade not aid” – they seek to provide proper coffee with subtle nuances of flavours, and narrow the gap between the coffee lover and the coffee grower through fair trade. Student-led climate

change campaigners, People and Planet, also had a stall at the fair. Tara Clarke of People and Planet said, the Oxford-based charity’s message was to get people inspired. People and Planet are associated with 155 universities across the country. They are currently holding campaigns about Fossil Fuels.

Oxfam also made an appearance at the fair with their swap-shop stall. The idea is based around the fact that a recent statistic stated that women only use around 30% of their wardrobes! The swap-shop stall uses the idea that people bring along an old piece of clothing and exchange it for something new. A charity shop taking on a recession influenced approach.

The event was certainly a success, and helped spread the message of being green in a friendly and fun way. Organiser of the event, employability intern Sophie Chivers, said:

“The Sustainability Fair was designed to raise student awareness to the issues around sustainability and green living. We got students to measure their carbon footprint, swap old clothes for new, and learn how to become self-sufficient. We also wanted to link with Fairtrade Fortnight, so we had a direct trade coffee stall and fair trade banana smoothies!”

Two will clap

One Hand Clapping - International Anthony Burgess Foundation, 14th - 16th March, 7:30pm. 

Words by Kevin Danson

ADAPTED BY MMU GRADUATE LUCIA COX, FROM THE NOVEL BY ANTHONY Burgess, One Hand Clapping will be on stage at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, 14^th – 16^th March.

Based in the sixties in a working-class town named Bradcaster (Bradford and Manchester), a couple; Janet and Howard, realise Burgess' thoughts on a transformed Britain influenced by the hype of American celebrities and mass consumption, creating this comic novel of instant riches and little satisfaction. Janet is a frivolous wife content with her supermarket job that allows her to serve her husband, Howard, meals three times a day. Howard works at a used car dealership. Their lives enter a makeover when Howard uses his special talent at winning game shows, taking them both on a life-changing journey to Heaven and Hell.

Speaking to Lucia about why she had chosen this piece from all of Burgess’ works, she says, ‘The novel was handed to me by Andrew Biswell, [Director of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation and author of Burgess’ biography, The Real Life of Anthony Burgess], who told me to have a read of it and to let him know what I thought’. After reading it in one sitting while in New York, Lucia knew exactly who she wanted to work with and how it would look on stage. She says, ‘It just translates so well as a piece of theatre. The actors I’ve got I’m very excited about’. You can watch her writing process on YouTube under One Hand Clapping V-Log 1.

This dark comedy, although set in the sixties, has major connections not just with Britain, but the world today. A play that engages both glee and gloom, wrapped in Burgess' cynical view, the audience can expect intimate moments blurred with media disturbances.

Lucia has an MA in creative Writing from MMU where she currently lectures. Her company, House of Orphans, has a series of productions to look out for this year, as well as her award-winning play, Blackbird, appearing on stage in New York. Click here to view her website, and follow her on Twitter @lucia_cox

Tickets cost £6 and are available directly from the IABF shop at the website: www.anthonyburgess.org. Alternatively, you can purchase tickets on site: 3 Cambridge Street, Manchester M1 5BY. 

Alumni Success

Interview with MMU alumnus and Television Producer, Anna Manton.

Words and photograph by Neil Harrison

MMU alumnus Anna Manton - All Saints campus.

MMU graduate AND SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION PRODUCER has returned to the All Saints campus to discuss her time at the university and her subsequent career. Anna Manton gained her degree in English Studies at MMU before going on to work as a producer/director on the flagship ITV current affairs programme, Tonight with Trevor McDonald. Originally hailing from Oxford, Anna says, “I just think Manchester is such a brilliant place to be.”

With designs on a career in television during her time at MMU, she set about exploiting the considerable media opportunities presented by the region’s links with the BBC and ITV. For any  current students looking to follow in her footsteps, Anna says, “With Media City the opportunities are just enormous.”

Not that getting her foot in the door proved easy. After a chance opportunity to work with a series producer at BBC Manchester whilst still a student, Anna made her impression. But a year later when seeking work experience from this same contact, it was her sheer tenacity which acheived results in the end: “I just kept ‘harassing’ her! I phoned her and phoned her and phoned her! She did say to me eventually, when I had got the job, that my persistence had paid off. A lot of people think; ‘oh, I don’t want to harass them,’ but you have to. It’s a confidence thing.”

Anna believes that studying for a degree helped prepare her for a career in journalism in numerous ways. Principally, however, she cites the sense of self-discipline she developed during her time at MMU as being key, explaining: “In my final year I really got my head down. That has definitely helped having that work ethic. Just knowing that if you work hard you will get something at the end of it.”

For Anna, the long-term reward—through much work experience, including a researcher’s role at the BBC—came in the shape of an assistant producer’s job on the current affairs programme, Tonight with Trevor McDonald. “It was a fantastic job, but it was nerve-racking. I was absolutely terrified for the first few weeks.”

Recalling an early experience Anna says, “There was some dreadful flooding and they sent me out one evening with a veteran ITN reporter and I was in charge of a great big cherry-picker, but I didn’t have a clue what I was doing! I have never felt so terrified in my life!” In spite of early nerves, it seems she grew to relish the intrepid and demanding nature of the job, which she speaks of enthusiastically. Her journalistic range is substantial, from covering Angela Cannings’ landmark cot-death court case, which saw Anna, ‘in the court of appeal for weeks, listening to all the testimonies’, to reporting on the MMR vaccine controversy, to making, ‘a really good film’ about the effects of food additives consumed by children, a film that piqued Jamie Oliver’s interest enough to inspire him to start his hugely influential school meals campaign. The job also saw Anna work with Martin Bashir on his now legendary Michael Jackson documentary. She shares her experience, saying: “When 9/11 happened there were eight of us straight on a plane to New York to cover the story. I travelled all over the world.”

Listen to what Anna had to say about what she learnt at MMU, here. 

Anna is currently taking a break from her career to be with her family and is studying for a diploma in psychotherapy, something that has always interested her. It is clear from speaking to Anna that she revelled in her role on the Tonight programme, and it is equally clear that she also remembers her time at MMU fondly, saying: “I loved being here; I absolutely loved the course and I just think that MMU feels edgier than other universities. There was loads going on and I really, really enjoyed my three years here. I would definitely recommend MMU to anybody.”

Neil Harrison is studying Social History at Manchester Metropolitan University. He is an aspiring journalist and a terrible guitar player. Read his blog LooseRiver and follow him on Twitter @looseriver

Critical Decisions for Digital Humanities

Digital Humanities, Monday, 18th February, 6pm, Geoffrey Manton Building, MMU

Photographs by Storm Rannard
Words by Kathleen Menzies

THE latest event in the Digital Humanities series saw Dr David Berry of Swansea University deliver a lecture to academics, students and the public.

‘Critical Digital Humanities’ was the latest in a series of events brought to MMU by the Institute of Humanities and Social Science Research (IHSSR) and hosted by Dr David Berry, Associate Professor of Digital Media at the University of Swansea (pictured). Open to the public, the audience also included students and academics from MMU.

“If you haven’t heard of Digital Humanities, you’ve done well – it’s created quite a buzz on the internet and at seminars,” Berry told the audience. “It could well be the case that this is the year for Digital Humanities, especially in the UK – there’s been a lot of interest surrounding it.”

Although positive about the future of Digital Humanities, Berry took a critical approach during his lecture, raising a number of issues and problems surrounding the cross-disciplinary subject as both an academic discipline and as a brand.

Berry stated that the nature of code and software can often be overlooked by advocates of Digital Humanities. Lost within computational formalisms, Berry feared academics could lose sight of the true interactive purposes of merging humanities and digital technology.

The take-home message of the evening was that the Digital Humanities must accommodate all aspects of traditional humanities including social science, politics and the economic and cultural. Some humanities researchers have already done this, as Berry made clear, but he urged all scholars to not forget the core concern of the field – the human subject – as they adapted into computational methods.

The next event in the IHSSR series is a talk by Professor Joanna Hodge on the right to philosophy, and the philosophy of right. This takes place on Monday 25^th February 2013.

‘What’s in it for us?’ Ethical Consideration in Gang Research.

The Institute of Humanities and Social Science Research, Monday, 11^th February, Geoffrey Manton Building, MMU

Words by Kevin Danson

As part of the Ethical Issues strand of MMU’s Research Institute’s Annual Research Programme, Dr Hannah Smithson and Dr Robert Ralphs, both Senior Lecturers in Criminology at MMU, presented their paper, ‘What’s in it for us?’, which discusses the issues surrounding the current preoccupation with gang culture.

The audience was comprised of students, lecturers, police officers, visitors from the University of Manchester and the University of Bedfordshire, who are working on sexual violence in gangs, and one visitor from London who had been specifically funded to attend this event by the Centre for Mental Health, London. Hannah, whose specialism is in the evaluation in social and criminal justice policy, shared their findings in the second half from the three case studies they were commissioned for, while Rob, who leads research of ethnographic study in youth gangs, opened up the lecture by critically assessing the appropriateness of academic resistance and policy responses to gang culture.

Rob explained that, ‘there has been a lack of research on gangs in the UK that has been explicitly looking at gangs up until the last five or six years’. However, when they applied for their funding to conduct this research in 2004, there had been no research on this topic for around thirty years in the UK. The knowledge we posses in relation to what a gang is, the image we have of one, and its members, comes from, Rob says; ‘the media, police, politicians, ex gang members, criminal memoirs and academic research’, which, as stated, has been lacking.

In the report, ‘Dying to Belong’ (2009), by Chairman of Centre for Social Justice, Iain Duncan Smith, it was stated that 50,000 gang members existed in England and Wales. This is an incredible number, and exactly what Rob justifies to be incorrect with his prime example of Manchester, an appropriate case study in terms of where we are in gang research. With a notorious reputation for gang violence, Manchester has been dubbed ‘Gunchester, Gangchester, Britain’s Bronx’. But how did these names come into existence? There are many factors that play a role in the creation of these etymologies, but the main ones include media representation and an extreme focus on ethnic minorities. After showing results of reports carried out in 2002 and 2012, Rob argues that, ‘within a ten-year period, gang membership has remained the same in Manchester’. Talking us through his calculations of gang members within the leading gang cities in the UK, with room to add on a couple more hundred, the number that is reached continues to remain far below the number stated by Smith.

The definition of what a gang is varies from person to person. For the Home Office, a definition of a gang was: ‘A group of three or more people who have a distinct identity (e.g. a name or badge/emblem) and commit general criminal or anti-social behaviour (ASB) as part of that identity. This group uses (or is reasonably suspected of using) firearms, or threat of firearms, when carrying out these offences’ (TGAP, 2008: 23). One detail Rob brought to our attention is that, in Manchester, ‘one firearm incident a year is attributed to gangs, and the last gang related homicide is four years ago, almost. By that definition, we don’t have a gang problem in Manchester anymore’. Another interesting detail he shared is that now, the Home Office has changed their definition of a gang by removing the focus on firearms.

Hannah revealed the findings of their case study at a place they named ‘Northville’. For protection of identity and location purposes, this name changing is a practice they adopt whenever a fieldwork research project is carried out. This particular research was commissioned by Northville’s Gang Strategy Board, who, according to them, had seen Northville experience gang related crime for a number of years. Nonetheless, the intelligence collected by the two researches revealed that they found something different to this statement.

The three designated areas chosen by the commissioners for research shared some similar characteristics; deprivation, high rate of serious violent crime and assault and its population pertaining largely to BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) groups. As their research developed, their concerns grew as they noticed that the chosen areas were predominantly Asian, Muslim areas, forcing them to focus on young Asian men.

Through their data collecting techniques, the information acquired pointed to the fact that Northville did not have the violent gang problem previously stated. While Rob was blending in - hanging around the streets - he got talking to one of the young residents. After telling him about the research he was conducting in the area, he was told, ‘You won’t find any gangs around here. … Drugs yes, gangs no’.

‘Gang speak’ has pervaded society and its use has now become commonplace when referring to a group of young people, especially in a deprived area, though with few or no similarities reflecting the definition of the Home Office. When asking the police about gang presence in Northville, their responses were unequivocal: ‘Northville did have a gang problem’. One officer disclosed; ‘We’ve got gangs, they’re just set-up differently’, while another confirmed; ‘Northville doesn’t have a violent gang problem, but it has a gang problem’. Moreover, when asked, ‘Why were these three predominantly Asian areas chosen?’, one reply was, ‘The problem is there’s so many of them. You wouldn’t get these problems (young people with very little to do, hanging about on the streets) in the white areas. They’re hanging about on streets (or in cars) because they don’t want to be at home’.

One detail that kept recurring amongst their research was the drug-dealing problem in Northville. Hannah highlighted the fact that money from the government was not being distributed to tackling drugs, but to combat gangs. For this reason, the gang problem Northville declared to have, appeared to be a way of them being granted the funds they were unable to receive for the drug problem. This, Hannah argues, is the current climate we find ourselves in within the UK.

The main conclusions I have taken from their research are that; ‘the problems in Northville are set against wider social problems of inequality’, the labeling of gangs has become too indifferent, thus alienating BAME groups and their communities, creating unwarranted marginalisation, stigmitisation and antagonistic relationships with the authorities.

The information provided was interesting in abundance. You can listen to the lecture to get the full story here. Their article that goes more into detail about what they found in Northville, ‘Used and Abused: The Problematic Usage of Gang Terminology in the United Kingdom and Its Implications for Ethnic Minority Youth’ has come out just this month in the British Journal of Criminology (BJC). You can find out more about this article here.

Kevin Danson is an English Literature student at MMU who likes to share his roving ramblings. Read his blog Pebbleddash and follow him on Twitter @pebbleddash