Centre for Humanities, Music and Performing Arts (HuMPA)

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Dr Richard Huzzey joined Plymouth University in 2010 as a History lecturer. He is interested in British history since 1776, specialising in the history of anti-slavery before 1901. His first book, Freedom Burning: Anti-Slavery and the Victorians, examines British foreign, imperial and economic policy and the political culture of anti-slavery in the period 1837-1901. This will be published next year, partially funded through a HuMPA research grant. Huzzey is co-editing a collection of essays entitled Naval Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade for Manchester University Press's 'Studies in Imperialism' series. Huzzey says: "As a new member of staff, it is great to see HumPA generating so many cross-disciplinary collaborations."

Dr Prarthana Purkayastha's research focuses on modern and contemporary dance and theatre practices, with a particular interest in South Asia. Using the framework of postcolonial theories of identity and representation, her research examines avant-garde and alternative performances made by artists in India and in the British Asian diaspora. Since joining Plymouth's Theatre and Performance department, Purkayashtha has shared her research at seminars, and published an article at the internationally acclaimed Dance Research Journal (forthcoming in May 2012). She has also been invited to India to speak at a conference on Rabindranath Tagore, organised by the Royal Asiatic Society in Kolkata in November 2012.

Dr Bonnie Latimer's research interests have so far focused on the work of the mid-eighteenth-century sentimental novelist and printer, Samuel Richardson (1689-1761). Latimer has published in recent years on Richardson and marriage, on Mary Wollstonecraft's adaptation for children of Grandison, on Richardson's influence on the feminist novelist Sarah Scott, and on Richardson's use of Anglican devotional memes. Her current piece of work on Richardson centres on the relationship between Grandison and the controversial piece of legislation 26 Geo. II, 26, or Jewish Naturalization Act.

Dr Gemma Blackshaw's research centres on the hostile art world of Vienna 1900, and has published on the young, male artists such as Richard Gerstl, Oskar Kokoschka, Max Oppenheimer and Egon Schiele who navigated their way through it. In 2004 Blackshaw was awarded a 4-year Arts and Humanities Research Project grant, with which she pursued her interest in the imaging of Vienna’s modern artists as ‘mad’. The fruits of this can be seen in the exhibition curated by Blackshaw, Madness and Modernity: Mental Illness and the Visual Arts in Vienna 1900 (Wellcome Collection, London and Wien Museum, Vienna 2009-10) and accompanying co-edited book of the same title, and the Journeys into Madness book she is co-editing with Sabine Wieber. Current research includes the preparation of a single-authored book Repositioning Portraiture in Vienna 1900 and a major exhibition on Viennese portraiture 1867-1918 for the National Gallery London.

Dr Nandini Chatterjee has received a grant from the University of Plymouth's International Research Networking and Collaboration funds, to conduct a one-year research and digitization project using the records of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, recently transferred to The National Archives. An inter-disciplinary team of researchers will study this institution of global significance, which had once been the supreme appellate court of the British empire. The project will appoint two international visiting fellows, one of whom is Dr Aparna Balachandran, Delhi University, India. Further details about the Privy Council project.

Related information

• Postgraduate opportunities in the Centre
• English and Creative Writing Research Directory page
• History Research Directory page
• Art History Research Directory page
• Theatre, Dance and Performing Arts Research Directory page
• Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research Directory page