Updated April 2022
It is the Easter break and I am on enforced rest recovering from Covid (yes - it finally got me). There are lots of things going on though.
We are just coming to the end of our process with the Edinburgh Companion to Modernism in Contemporary Theatre. It has been a lot of work and covid/life/the world has caused so many ups and downs. But we are proud of the eventual collection. I am still pondering the next stages for the Health and Wellbeing in Professional Wrestling project (funded by the British Academy). I am leading a very exciting new collaborative initiative that, funding dependent, would be simply amazing. My keynote for the Professional Wrestling Studies Association Wrestleposium III conference (April) will be presenting some of the data from this project. Also In April I'm going to be delivering an invited paper as part of a symposium on Proxies (run by Dylan Mulvin of LSE and Annette Hill of Lund). I am really excited to have the opportunity to consider wrestling in light of this new and interesting idea. I'm also working on our funding application on the history of strongman competition (with Conor Heffernan and Broderick Chow) and am turning the keynote I delivered last year at the British Society for Sports History conference into a paper for a special edition of Performance Research on blood.
Alongside this, I am still using this period to reflect on future plans and objectives, particularly focusing on leadership. So, in June (and with the very kind support of Loughborough University) I am going to be taking the Oxford Women's Leadership Development Programme run by Said Business School at the University of Oxford. I am so excited to have this opportunity. At some point, when life quietens down a little (cue: much laughter) I also want to return to my monograph.
As I continue to work with our students, fulfil a number of leadership roles within our School, and just try to be a supportive colleague, I am inspired by Maya Angelou's advice: "Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud". May we be rainbows in people's clouds in 2022...
It is the Easter break and I am on enforced rest recovering from Covid (yes - it finally got me). There are lots of things going on though.
We are just coming to the end of our process with the Edinburgh Companion to Modernism in Contemporary Theatre. It has been a lot of work and covid/life/the world has caused so many ups and downs. But we are proud of the eventual collection. I am still pondering the next stages for the Health and Wellbeing in Professional Wrestling project (funded by the British Academy). I am leading a very exciting new collaborative initiative that, funding dependent, would be simply amazing. My keynote for the Professional Wrestling Studies Association Wrestleposium III conference (April) will be presenting some of the data from this project. Also In April I'm going to be delivering an invited paper as part of a symposium on Proxies (run by Dylan Mulvin of LSE and Annette Hill of Lund). I am really excited to have the opportunity to consider wrestling in light of this new and interesting idea. I'm also working on our funding application on the history of strongman competition (with Conor Heffernan and Broderick Chow) and am turning the keynote I delivered last year at the British Society for Sports History conference into a paper for a special edition of Performance Research on blood.
Alongside this, I am still using this period to reflect on future plans and objectives, particularly focusing on leadership. So, in June (and with the very kind support of Loughborough University) I am going to be taking the Oxford Women's Leadership Development Programme run by Said Business School at the University of Oxford. I am so excited to have this opportunity. At some point, when life quietens down a little (cue: much laughter) I also want to return to my monograph.
As I continue to work with our students, fulfil a number of leadership roles within our School, and just try to be a supportive colleague, I am inspired by Maya Angelou's advice: "Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud". May we be rainbows in people's clouds in 2022...
