Current research projects

These pages provide an overview of selected current research projects in Birkbeck's School of Arts. For full details of research interests and activities, including current book projects, conference organising and speaking, please see the individual staff profiles on our department websites.

Drawing together: the visual archive of expeditionary fieldwork Inspired by recent approaches to the study of visual technologies in anthropological fieldwork, Dr Martins’ project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, explores the practice and experience of image-making as deployed on European expeditions to South America from the 1850s to the 1950s.

Shock City: Image and Architecture in Industrial Manchester This project, is funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust in the form of a one year Senior Research Fellowship for Professor Mark Crinson.

Colonial Modernity and the Empire of Experiment In Colonial Modernity and the Empire of Experiment Dr Emily Senior investigates how the colonies of the British Empire provided a laboratory for experimenting with new forms of medical and scientific practice. Read more

Conceiving Histories Conceiving Histories is a research project examining the history of pre-pregnancy, funded by Birkbeck/Wellcome ISSF. A collaboration between Isabel Davis, an academic literary historian, and Anna Burel, a visual artist, it puts different ways of working into dialogue and uses artwork as well as writing to articulate the project’s research findings. Read more

Fluid Physicalities Fluid Physicalities is a series of lectures and a conference organised by Professors Anthony Bale(Medieval Studies) and Esther Leslie (Political Aesthetics), with support from Wellcome ISSF. It explores the cultural representation and mediation of bodily fluids. Read more

The Open Library of Humanities (OLH) The Open Library of Humanities (OLH) is a charitable organisation dedicated to publishing open access scholarship with no author-facing article processing charges (APCs). Developed and run by Professor Martin Paul Eve and Dr. Caroline Edwards, the platform is underpinned by a unique economic model for publishing free-to-read academic journals.

Pilgrim libraries: books and reading on the medieval routes to Jerusalem & Rome This two-year project (2016-18) seeks to interrogate the surviving books that the pilgrims read and wrote before, during, and after their pilgrimages to reveal what can they tell us about premodern trans-national culture. Read more

Identifying with the Art of the Fifteenth Century This project, supported by the British Academy, explores the art of fifteenth-century Europe and the interests which have shaped its study.

Modern European Languages and Literatures Dr Anthony Bale, Reader in Medieval Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, has been awarded a 2011 Philip Leverhulme Prize for Modern European Languages and Literatures. Read more

Picturing the Closet: Queer (in)visibility after the trials of Oscar Wilde This British Academy funded research project explores the visual culture of the ‘spectacle of the closet’ outlined in relation to literature. It will look at the ways in which homosexuals were depicted and visually presented themselves before and after the trials of Oscar Wilde in 1895. Read more

Nice Work if You Can Get It: Preparing Students for Work in Film, Media and the Cultural Studies A Higher Education Academy funded project, led by Dr Lorraine Lim, which aims to develop curriculum that prepares and equips students with the necessary skills and knowledge to develop and manage a career in film, media and the cultural industries.

Mobilising the value of biocultural collections in Brazil Dr Luciana Martins forms part of this interdisciplinary project team to research, catalogue and mobilise data from important collections, and to develop these unique resources for improved understanding of the useful and cultural properties of plants.

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Current research projects