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Humanities team gets ‘positively disruptive’ with festival funding win

04/07/2022
Humanities team gets ‘positively disruptive’ with festival funding win

A world-leading research team in the University of Wolverhampton’s School of Humanities is celebrating securing funding for a series of community activities as part of the forthcoming Being Human Festival 2022. 

The team, led by Bas Groes, Professor in English Literature at the University, has secured over £4,000 to fund the series of events with the School being selected as a Hub for the festival which is run in partnership with the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the British Academy (BA), and the School of Advanced Study, University of London (SAS).  

The Being Human Festival runs from 10 to 19 November 2022. The events, which are part of a 10-day national programme of big ideas, big debates and engaging activities for all ages, champion excellence in arts and humanities research at the University of Wolverhampton. 

Being Human is the UK’s only national festival of the humanities. A celebration of humanities research through public engagement, it is led by the School of Advanced Study at the University of London, the UK’s national centre for the pursuit, support and promotion of research in the humanities. 

A spokesperson for Being Human said: “The panel scored the University Hub application very highly and felt it was an exciting series of programming which responded well to the theme and priorities of the 2022 festival.”  

Professor Groes said: “We are all absolutely thrilled to have been chosen as one of the few, selected Hubs for this year’s Being Human Festival – this is amazing news following our recent stunning result with the national Research Excellence Framework (REF2021), which featured our research on changing perceptions of the Black Country. 

“For this year’s festival we’ve put together another really exciting and engaging programme of activities for people to enjoy across the Black Country, which will celebrate the Black Country as well as the University’s School of Humanities’ excellent research. 

“The importance of the Humanities to our local communities has never been more at the forefront of people’s consciousness and we are here to say that there will always be a place in learning for this area of academic study and research.” 

The POSITIVELY DISRUPTIVE programme events include delving into Digital Humanities with focus on using eye tracking technology to explain unconscious biases.  There will be interactive encounters with care and chat bots, an opportunity to discover Geopoetics in local parks, create art in an NHS workshop and create and maintain disruptive energy in the city through art following the British Art Show 9 exhibition. 

Young people will get the opportunity to cuddle the Japanese LOVOT robot that’s powered by human emotions and explore the power of art at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery.  The team will also organise two international Being Human events in Japan, including one at the Haruki Murakami Library in Tokyo.  The Humanities team will also co-organise an international event with colleagues from Berdyansk University in the Ukraine, whose staff are currently living in Lviv as refugees.   

Find out more about the Being Human Festival on the website where dates and times will be posted later in the year.  

Find out more about Humanities research at Wolverhampton by visiting the CTTR research centre and see public engagement events by the team on their YouTube channel.  

Find out more about the University's research in these publications:  

Research Matters - showcasing our research successes and news from the sector.  

The Wolverhampton Briefing - our new quarterly update on our vital research activity. 

Anyone looking to study at the University of Wolverhampton should register for one of our forthcoming Open Days. 

ENDS 

 

For more information please contact the Corporate Communications Team.

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