surface studies
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CONVENORS

Rebecca Coleman
(Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)
Beckie's interest in surfaces comes from research on bodies and images which led her to explore how screens function as interfaces that co-ordinate different temporalities.  She is extending this interest in surfaces, thinking through recent theories of topology, temporality and the future and affect. Relevant publications include Transforming Images: Screens, Affect, Futures (2012, Routledge).

Liz Oakley-Brown (English and Creative Writing, Lancaster University, UK)
Liz's work on surfaces began with the Skin: texture\textuality\word\image conference (co-organised with Tiffany Atkinson, Aberystwyth University, UK) which took place at the Institute of English Studies, London in 2004. Recent relevant research includes the book-length project entitled Shakespearean Surfaces: Reading, Writing and Performing Superficiality in Sixteenth-Century England.

DIRECTORY

Patricia Cahill (Associate Professor, English, Emory University, Atlanta) Pat’s  work on surfaces originated with her work on the abstract, mathematical  surfaces of Elizabethan  military treatises and drama, which she explores in Unto the Breach: Martial Formations, Historical Trauma, and the Early Modern Stage (OUP, 2008). Her current book project, Shakespeare's Skins, considers surface aesthetics, sensations, and affects in a range of Renaissance dramas.

Anuradha Chatterjee (Lecturer/Assistant Professor, Architecture, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University in China) is interested in surface and visuality in architectural theory (specifically that of John Ruskin) in so far as it challenges the disciplinary definition and conventions of architecture and limits of architectural discourse. Dr Chatterjee is under contract to edit a collection titled Surface and Deep Histories for Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK, in which she has authored the scholarly introduction to the collection titled 'Surface Potentialities' and a chapter  titled 'Surface Typologies, Critical Function, and Glass Walls in Australian Architecture'.

Samantha Colling (Associate Lecturer, Film and Media, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Research Degrees Assistant, Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design).  Sam's recently completed PhD research explores the aesthetic pleasures of girl teen films.  Focusing on those moments and surfaces designed to generate the most affective force, the work examines how the Hollywood (postfeminist, neoliberal) version of girlhood is designed to feel fun.  She is also currently researching hair in film.


Sarah Gilligan (Lecturer in Media, Hartlepool College, UK) is interested in costume, fashion and identities in visual culture. She is the author of the forthcoming monograph Fashion and Film: Gender, Costume and Stardom in Contemporary Cinema (Berg, 2015) and 'Long coats, flowing fabrics: fashioning masculinity and desire in film and television' in Glenn Adamson and Victoria Kelley's collection of essays entitled Surface Tensions: Surface, Finish and the Meaning of Objects (MUP, 2013). 
 
Xaroula Kerasidou (Sociology, Lancaster University, UK) is interested in computational interfaces as surfaces and particularly in their boundary-making work.

Pietra Palazzolo (Associate Lecturer, Modern and Contemporary Literature, and Cultural Studies, The Open University and Essex University). Pietra’s interest in surfaces began with her study on the figuration of skin in John Banville’s Shroud while working on her doctoral thesis at Essex University, an extract of which was presented at the Skin:
texture\textuality\word\image
 conference organised by Liz Oakley-Brown and Tiffany Atkinson (London 2004). Pietra’s recent work is on the interaction and permeability of surfaces in the figuration of bodies and things in contemporary fiction and material culture. Her current book project, Migrating Selves, maps this relationality of surfaces as border crossing in identity making processes and concepts of home and belonging.

Lucy Razzall (Research Fellow, Emmanuel College, Cambridge)  Lucy's work engages with the interfaces between writing and material culture in  early modern England. Her first book traces the material and imaginative  potential of containers - boxes, chests, cabinets, reliquaries - in  post-Reformation England. She is interested in ideas of superficiality, and the   relationships between textual and material surfaces. She is also interested in textiles, and in 2012 co-convened a conference on 'Texts and Textiles' at the Centre for Material Texts, Cambridge.

Xavier Aldana Reyes (Lecturer, English Studies, Manchester Metropolitan  University) is interested in affective surfaces, particularly the interactions between screen, text and body. My research often explores the limits of corporeality and its representation in literature and film.

Ben Whyman (Manager, Centre for Fashion Curation, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London) is working
towards a PhD which aims to merge material culture analysis and life-writing methodologies. Analysing collections of menswear at the V&A Museum, he is exploring how a greater appreciation of the materiality of clothing can augment our understanding of a life lived. Ben is currently working on a chapter about Hardy Amies for a V&A Publishing book on London Couture (2015).





 
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