TVAD Research Group - Plans for 2014

The TVAD Research Group has enjoyed a productive period in the past academic year 2013-14, and looks forward to further development in the current year. Development will focus on two directions: greater collaboration between TVAD’s researchers, and further external collaborations. The former will build on commonalities revealed through the sharing of research in the TVAD Talks series, for example in the shared interest the design event (Kerry Purcell) and the photographic event (Dr Daniel Marques Sampaio) and how the body opposes power (Dr Daniel Marques Sampaio) through undress (Dr Barbara Brownie). Collaboration between TVAD members has also found focus in last year’s Texts/Cities conference convened by Dr Daniel Marques Sampaio and Michael Heilgemeir, which showcased the work of other TVAD researchers among others, including Dr Barbara Brownie and Dr Marta Rabikowska, each with an interest in place and environment. We plan collaborations with the wider University research community via the University’s Centre for Sustainable Communities (particularly research collaboration with the Centre’s Dr Susan Parham), Creative Economy Research Centre and UH Galleries. External collaboration will be boosted when we are joined by our third annual Visiting Researcher, Dr Javier Gimeno-Martínez, working on national identity and globalization in design in the current academic year. TVAD comprises a group of established and emergent researchers and across the constituency; we seek to prioritise quality in our activities and outputs, pursuing publication in the most favourably rated journals in the various fields engaged by TVAD research and seeking strategic conference exposure. As an aid to quality we also plan a reading group, to facilitate peer feedback on work in progress.  

What follows is an outline of the planned work for some of TVAD’s researchers, who were present to represent their research at a TVAD meeting in September 2014. Other TVAD researchers’ work is outlined in the TVAD webpages.

As noted, Dr Daniel Marques Sampaio has been working with Michael Heilgemeir on the Texts/Cities conference last year (which showcased the work of other TVAD researchers including Dr Barbara Brownie and Dr Marta Rabikowska) and a related event in Berlin. A resultant volume of TVAD's online peer-reviewed journal Writing Visual Culture is planned for publication by the end of the current academic year. Michael and Daniel plan to develop the issue as an app to emphasize the visual aspects of the content with enhanced multimedia for the iPad. Daniel will deliver a new paper at the conference 'Photography and Politics: Images of Revolution' while Michael has developed his project 'The Nomadic Studio' into an open wiki and has been liaising with UCL's urban lab.

Dr Marta Rabikowska has focused on fewer targets, centred upon people, environment and discourse. She is interested in working with Michael and Daniel further. She will be presenting her research on the role of reflection at the University's SSAHRI research institute conference Betwixt and Between (October 2014) and at another conference in November. Dr Rabikowska has a book contracted on the topic of visual methods in community which summarises her research over the past six years (Rowman and Littlefield), and she is developing published work on the creative labour of diverse urban communities in London.

Dr Barbara Brownie is working on and with the 'Titles and Trailers' group. She has two books on fashion forthcoming with Bloomsbury and will have two journal articles completed within the next year.

           Polly Palmer is working on a journal article about study experiences out of the classroom and capacity for social and cultural change that this pedagogical practice promises, with reference to regeneration theory. She is contributing a research seminar on the same topic to the TVAD Talks series and is working with UH Galleries on engaging students with the Galleries’ exhibition series.

  

In August 2015, the British Film Institute will publish Dr Mark Broughton’s analysis of the 1981 television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited. Dr Broughton is working on a new book about screenwriter Nigel Kneale and plans to undertake a new study about the rostrum camera facilitated by external funding.

Dr Grace Lees-Maffei is completing two contracted book manuscripts to be published in 2016: Designing Worlds: National Design Histories in an Age of Globalization, co-edited with Prof Kjetil Fallan (Berghahn, for submission in January 2015) and Reading Graphic Design, co-authored with Dr Nicolas P. Maffei, (Bloomsbury Academic, for submission in June 2015). In addition, she is contracted to write three book chapters for the different large scale book projects on consumption and globalization, home and hospitality and verbal descriptions of furniture respectively. Dr Lees-Maffei has several projects planned for which she will apply for external funding, and a new book project proposal in process.

Watch this space for news of these plans developing!

 

Dr Grace Lees-Maffei
TVAD Research Group Leader.