Angels and Apes on Summer Hiatus

The time has come – the sun is shining, the plants are pollinating, and here in Rotterdam (my former place of work), where I’m volunteering at the 46th Poetry International Festival, walking outside in flip-flops and a short sleeves is almost comfortable. Today, among many exciting readings, workshops, and master classes, we’ve got a programme featuring … Read more

Approaching Posthumanism and the Posthuman

As I write this post I’m sitting at Starbucks in Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, waiting for my flight to Switzerland to start boarding. I’ll be at the Approaching Posthumanism and the Posthuman conference in Geneva from 4-6 June, presenting a paper on monsters in remix culture, mingling with the other international attendees, and listening to what promises to … Read more

Roland Barthes and Spaces of Attunement

Whereas this week I’m busy with preparations for two conference presentations at guest universities, at the end of March I was a passive observer at two separate sets of conferences, both at my very own Cardiff University. My department hosted the ‘Roland Barthes at 100’ conference, the School of Planning and Geography across the way held a ‘Spaces of Attunement’ symposium, and … Read more

10 Things No One Tells You About Getting Paid to Facebook

This post originally appeared on Social Media Skills for Students, a comprehensive website that hosts how-to guides for and reviews of the most popular forms of social media. It also provides firsthand experiences, opinions, and advice from students and staff who use social media in teaching, learning, research, and other professional capacities, as well as showcasing … Read more

Our Zombies, Ourselves: A Lecture with J. Halberstam

At guest lectures I usually come prepared to fully understand about half of the references made, and get excited about one or two particular sound bytes. Not so at Jack Halberstam’s lecture on Zombie Humanism at the End of the World (originally titled ‘Our Zombies, Ourselves: Queerness at the End of Time’), kindly hosted by the Cardiff … Read more

The Daily Routines of Famous Creative People

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to write more. As part of my effort to blog more regularly, and to produce written work more consistently in general, I’ve been trying to develop a daily routine that isn’t too constricting, but that does get me working on the things I should be doing. Creative and constructive. Clearly I’m not the only who has this struggle, and in that spirit I’d like to share this awesome interactive infographic on the daily routines of famous creative types, based on ‘Daily Rituals‘ by Mason Currey:

 


(via Podio)

If you click through to Podio’s website you can see even more details, like what exactly that exercise or food break consisted of.

Well and Unwell: The Body in the Nineteenth Century (possibly NSFW)

Last week Thursday I flew from Cardiff back to the Netherlands, where I’ll be whiling away the holidays with my partner. It’s not all oliebollen and ice skating, though. I am determined that there will be at least some thesis work conducted during this break. On Friday (the day after I arrived) I made a trip into Amsterdam … Read more

New to the Reading List (11/12/2014)

The second round of the books I ordered from the library have now arrived, and two of them were in hardcover no less. Not something you see every day, and certainly not in the “popular fiction” realm of theory, which tends to be relegated to trade paperback – not too shabby, but not quite as … Read more

New to the Reading List (05/12/2014)

In this initial phase of my full-time PhD research I’ve been doing a lot of reading. Fortunately Cardiff University’s library has a massive selection of books in my field, specifically on the Gothic and on neo-Victorian fiction. They were missing a handful of books that I really felt I needed, so about a month ago … Read more