Arts and Humanities Futures

The second series of curated conversations brings together University of Leeds researchers from different backgrounds, disciplines and career stages.

The recent years have brought extraordinary and ongoing challenges to societies and cultures, as well as bringing long-standing crises and predicaments to the foreground in new ways. The aim of this series is to stimulate conversations about how research communities might respond to these challenges – and about the futures we want to imagine and realise.

The videos below represent an edited version of a longer podcast. The videos were played sequentially over four separate online events (April-May 2022) hosted by the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute.

Alice Owen and Stephen Dobson (First shown April 2022)

A discussion between Alice Owen (School of Earth and Environment) and Stephen Dobson (School of Performance and Cultural Industries) around issues relating to sustainability.

Their conversation covers: the role of Culture in sustainability; the relationship between Enterprise & sustainability; the importance of place, and place-specific approaches, to sustainability; and, more broadly, Alice and Steve will reflect on the value of interdisciplinarity.

Adriaan Van Klinken and Katie McQuaid (first shown April 2022)

This video features a discussion between Katie McQuaid (school of Geography) and Adriaan van Klinken (School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science).

Adriaan and Katie’s conversation covers the role of the arts and community-based theatre in research, the role of the researcher in the field, and their relationships with research participants and upscaling research from grassroots fieldwork to bring top-level impact.

Beth Johnson and Cristina Leston-Bandeira (first shown May 2022)

A discussion between Beth Johnson (School of Media and Communications) and Cristina Leston-Bandeira (School of Politics).

Beth and Cristina’s conversation covers the UK public’s relationship and engagement with government, lasting inequalities within the UK film and television industry, diversity in the screen industries and the UK parliament and the power of storytelling in bringing about change.

Gehan Selim and Haili Ma (first shown May 2022)

This is features a discussion between with Haili Ma (School of Performance and Cultural Industries) and Gehan Selim (School of Civil Engineering).

Gehan and Haili’s conversation explores:

Heritage research in the context of digital platforms and participatory research
Building richer narratives in digital heritage by engaging with young people
"Performing heritage" and the opportunities to reach wider audiences outside of traditional theatre
The challenges for research in the Global South, such as power inequalities, and defining ownership of heritage stories