city|speculations

RESEARCH INTERESTS

 

I welcome inquiries from students wishing to research visuality and visual culture, place and memory, graffiti and materiality of writing, spatial and visual practices intersecting architecture, the city, text and image.

 

Some specific themes of my research interests are listed below:

 

• wayfinding, signage, branding and informational environments

• photography and photographic essay

• place memory, commemorative practices, city and war

• semiotics of place, urban semiotic landscapes

• visibility and materiality of language: writing, bookworks, language-based art

• graffiti: history, theory of writing, locality and ephemeral urban textual practices

• exhibition design and curating, multimodality of research presentation

• critical pedagogy, research-led studio, experimental research methodologies

• Canadian city, Central/East European city, post-socialist city

 

 

CURRENT RESEARCH STUDENTS

 

Fiona Hanley (PhD Cultural Studies) Writing Languages of Inquiry: the role of writing in academic research. Graduate School of ACE Award for 2010‐13, AHRC Doctoral Scholarship 2011‐13 (with Prof Mark Dorrian, Newcastle Architecture Research).

Piotr Lesniak (PhD Architecture by Design) Design for the Postsocialist City: studio, site and methodologies of practice‐based research. Principal’s Scholarship for Architecture 2011‐2014 (with Dr Dorian Wiszniewski, Architecture)

Wendy Anne Stewart‐Zyw (PhD in Cultural Studies) Street Art and the Politics of Indigenous Space in Vancouver and Belfast, 2011‐14. (with Dr Claudia Hopkins, Art History)

Konstantinos Avramides (PhD by Design in Architecture) Mapping the Social Life of Walla: On graffiti, territoriality and public space, ECA PhD Scholarship 2012‐15. (with Dr Dorian Wiszniewski, Architecture)

Konrad Matyjaszek (PhD in Architecture) Jewish Places: Visibility of Jewish Memory in the Urban Space of Poland. Co‐supervision with Jewish Studies, ECA PhD Scholarship 2012‐15. (with Dr Hannah Holstschneider, Jewish Studies)

Alexandra Ntouvli (PhD in Cultural Studies) Teaching critical literacy and popular culture. Co‐supervision with Sociology, Greek Educational Scholarship 2012‐15. (with Dr Nick Prior, Sociology)

 

Jane McArthur (MSc Research Cultural Studies) War Ruins: Sites and Memories of Destruction. Andrew Grant Postgraduate Award for 2010‐11 for MSc Research.

Maria Güther (MSc Research Cultural Studies) Visual Representations of Competing Memories in the Lithuanian Museum and Memorial Landscape. 2012-13. (with Dr Hannah Holtschneider, Jewish Studies)

 

COMPLETED THESES

 

Konrad Matyjaszek (MSc by Research in Architecture/Cultural Studies 2012) Visibility of Jewish Memories in Polish Cities. AHRC Masters Scholarship 2011‐12. (co-supervision with Dr Hannah Holtschneider)

Piotr Lesniak (MSc by Research 2011, Architecture/Cultural Studies) The post‐socialist city: methodologies of urban research. AHRC Scholarship Cultural Studies 2010‐11.

Jack Burton (PhD Cultural Studies 2011) Representations of Family Fatherhood in contemporary British Media. (co‐supervisor with Sociology) AHRC Scholarship in Cultural Studies 2006‐09

Hanna Sommerseth (PhD 2010) Being Virtual: Experience and Embodiment in Interactive Computer Game Play. Overseas Student Studentship 2005‐08, Norwegian Government Scholarship, 2008‐09

We Kuang Liu (PhD Architecture, 2010) Managing Change: Urban Morphology and Everyday Life in the Heterotopic Tainan (second supervisor in Architecture, Stephen Cairns)

Olga Morgunova (PhD 2008, Russian Studies) Russian On‐line Diaspora. (second supervisor with Russian Studies, Lara Riazoanova‐Clark)