Welcome to the world of my insatiable love of books, buying books, and intermittently writing about them. I also write about other things sometimes. But really, it’s books. Enjoy. Discuss. Get Involved!
“Well, we wouldn’t recommend that”:
An adventure in purchasing an engagement ring When I proposed to my partner, I thought that I would like a ring, but I’d also told myself that I could buy something small for myself as a “proud of me for shaking the patriarchy a teeny tiny amount”. The morning after we got engaged, my partner…
The proposal that wasn’t
About three months ago, I decided that I would like to propose to my partner. We had had “marriage chats” so I was not proposing blind. I was 99% certain that, if done with love, we would end up engaged at the end. Having made the decision with myself, I began to think about what…
Day 1: An Introductory Letter
Hello, and welcome to my research diary or “living bibliography”! I am an academic, working on musicals and popular culture in America and Britain. My writing focuses mainly on how “identity” is represented and formed in musicals (on and off stage and screen). I am in the middle of three “substantial” projects and am often…
Living Bibliography
“This project is, of necessity, wildly but carefully undisciplined.”[1] My living bibliography practice stems from a frustration and tension of talking most about my work to “non-academic” audiences while being pushed to strive for professional heights within my sector. I have observed and felt the viciousness of “owning knowledge”. The drive to be the first,…
Things you may not know about applying for a PhD in the Arts and Humanities in the U.K.
Hello. This is a very short resource for people looking at the PhD application process in the UK right now. S0me of this information may be obvious but there is a real lack of democracy and transparency about getting on to PhDs in the UK, and I want to make sure as many people have…
An Abundance of Listening
This blog is written during the March 2022 strikes in UK higher education. I am on strike and trying to balance spending time with my puppy Sula, resting, and spending some concentrated time with the books on my shelves. In the first strikes of 2022, I began a project of self-flagellation. I decided to use…
To the nerd I loved the longest,
You kept your apps in alphabetical order. All of them. Weirdo. Why is WhatsApp four screens away? Absolute nerd. You knew every word to every song by Belle and Sebastian. No more “Piazza New York Catcher” singalongs. Our song. Sunshine and parks. Rants about work stress. The soundtrack to four months of dad jokes on…
My Kind of Spark: On Neurodivergence and Unlearning.
This post is inspired by Elle McNicoll’s book A Kind of Spark. The book is about a neurodivergent girl called Addie who campaigns to get a memorial for women killed in witch trials held in her village. I’m nervous about this blog because it has been a long time since I had such a strong…
Dear Britney, I hope you get justice.
Content note: this post discusses coercive behaviour and domestic abuse. I don’t know anything about conservatorship. This post isn’t about that. And it’s not about mental health and legal rights. It is about Britney Spears apologising for pretending to be OK. There is a lot of dialogue about how female-passing people are forced not to…
A reflection on best practice and duty of care in British academia
I get a lot of questions about my teaching practice, my pastoral attitudes, and the relationship between my research that connects many aspects of identity with improving Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in British universities. I think about how to do my different works better a lot but, in that, I’ve never reached a short…
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Hannah Marie Robbins 