Virtual conferences and the ‘tyranny of distance’


Blog

One of the positive things that has emerged from the pandemic is virtual conferences. In the last two years, I have been able to attend more talks and conferences than I normally would have if international travel was required. More importantly, virtual conferences have enabled me to maintain connection with my research network and peers […]

27/06/2022

Work life balance and strict personal-professional boundaries


Blog

‘How’s your work life balance’ is the question I get asked at every annual appraisal. It’s not a bad thing, for it signals the institution’s acknowledgment of academics’ wellbeing, but I question if it’s enough. Namely, is it enough if the institution only pays lip service but the actual practice of ensuring everyone who works […]

06/06/2022

Lockdown diary in a pandemic


Blog

“You are not working from home. You are at your home, during a crisis, trying to work“. I’ve seen this phrase being shared repeatedly on social media the last week or so, as a reminder that this is an unprecedented time we’re living through. And we shouldn’t be expecting for things to continue like normal; […]

13/04/2020

On the problematics of “colour”, and on silence


Blog

I have issues with the term “people of colour”. I despise it. One problem is because it’s an American term that has been popularised and adapted into global acceptance, without as much as contextualising the differences in history, culture and language. It also comes loaded with American sensibilities, and with it, its conception of race. […]

30/05/2019

Is your world more racist or misogynistic?


Blog

I was recently asked if my current world was more racist or misogynistic. By default, I fell back to saying it was more racist, as I’ve reflected before, on how casually discriminatory and flippant people can be on racial and cultural differences. But over the course of time since the question was posed to me, […]

12/01/2019

Shethority: moving beyond playing a superhero on television


Blog

This paper was presented at the Superheroes Beyond conference held at ACMI, Melbourne, Australia from 6-8 December 2018. At the Superheroes Identity Symposium in 2016, I presented a paper on the conceptualisation of Felicity Smoak — a previously minor character on DC comics turned leading character on the CW’s Arrow — as a superhero, or […]

16/12/2018