PhD student at St John’s selected as one of the 2019 ‘New Generation Thinkers’
“More than ever we need the new insights that come from arts and humanities researchers to help us navigate the complexities of our globalised world"
Ten researchers from across the UK have been announced as ‘New Generation Thinkers’ by BBC Radio 3, BBC Arts and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) today.
From techno music in Berlin to the post-war ‘rag trade’, and divisive dams to fake news, the researchers from across the UK will have the opportunity to communicate their research by making programmes for radio and television for the BBC.
Christina J Faraday, a PhD student at St John’s who is looking at the ways Tudor artists made absent things vividly present for their viewers, is one of the ten researchers that have been chosen after a national call for the best ideas with the potential to be shared through the media.
Christina J Faraday
“The New Generation Thinkers scheme is about helping the next generation of researchers find new and wider audiences for their research"
She will now have the opportunity to make programmes for Radio 3 and other outlets, as well as contributing to wider media through the AHRC and taking part in the 2019 Being Human Festival. The scheme also partners with BBC Four and some of the selected academics, who are all at the start of their careers, will be given the opportunity to present a programme for TV.
All of the New Generation Thinkers will be using their air time to showcase a vibrant mix of research from across the arts and humanities with a view to capturing the public imagination.
Professor Andrew Thompson, Executive Chair of the AHRC, says: “The New Generation Thinkers scheme is about helping the next generation of researchers find new and wider audiences for their research by giving them a platform to share their ideas and allowing them to have the space to challenge our thinking.
“More than ever we need the new insights and knowledge that come from arts and humanities researchers to help us navigate through the complexities of our globalised world and address the moral and ethical challenges of today and tomorrow.”
All of the New Generation Thinkers will be using their air time to showcase a vibrant mix of research from across the arts and humanities with a view to capturing the public imagination.
The New Generation Thinkers were selected from hundreds of applications from researchers at the start of their careers. They have all demonstrated a passion for communicating their work and a skill for making complex areas of study engaging, accessible, and enlightening.
The final ten researchers were chosen after a four-month selection process, including a series of day-long workshops at the BBC in Salford and London. They have undergone training and development with the AHRC and will spend a year being mentored by producers from Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme. Throughout this programme they will take part in Free Thinking discussions and go on to write episodes of BBC Radio 3’s The Essay.
"The college is an extremely supportive environment for an aspiring scholar"
Faraday’s research explores the ways objects in Tudor and Jacobean England were thought to communicate. In the absence of English art theory from this period, she looks to rhetorical theory - the art of teaching and persuading an audience in writing and speech - and poetic theory, and shows how techniques used by authors to create 'vividness' in their writing have parallels in the visual arts.
Faraday said: “I started at St John's as an undergraduate in 2011 and stayed to complete an MPhil and a PhD in History of Art. The college is an extremely supportive environment for an aspiring scholar, with amazing intellectual and financial resources available for students.
“As a Tudor specialist, the college's wonderful sixteenth-century architecture has been a constant source of inspiration too!
“I'm really excited to have been chosen as a New Generation Thinker. My research is all about powerful communication and the many different forms it can take: visual as well as verbal. I can't wait to share these ideas with a wider audience.”
The selected academics will be publicly unveiled at a free event recorded as part of BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead on Saturday, March 30.
Published: 01/03/19