News
Research Round-up: Good News from the Faculty of Media, Arts and Humanities
Posted on behalf of: Faculty of Media, Arts and Humanities
Last updated: Thursday, 16 October 2025
A celebration of recent research activity and successes of Media, Arts and Humanities researchers.
Formerly the 'Good News' section of the Research Newsletter, the Research Round-up is a regular feature within the Media, Arts and Humanities Institute and a space to celebrate each other's successes.
If you'd like your good news included in the next Research Round-up, email us at MAH-research@sussex.ac.uk.
To catch up on previous news, read the September Research Round-up.
Awards, recognition and funding
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Sussex Digital Humanities Lab and the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence will help deliver some of the programmes of Queer Heritage South: Live Archive, which has been awarded a landmark £1.25m by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. The three-year programme, produced by Marlborough Productions, will create an inclusive digital archive, animate it through public events, and culminate in a major exhibition in 2027. The University hosted the most recent phase of public programming, The Coast is Queer Festival of LGBTQIA+ literature from 9-12 Oct, in partnership with New Writing South, on campus at the ACCA. The initiative is a collaboration between Brighton & Hove Museums, University of Sussex, The Keep, Sussex Digital Humanities Lab, Screen Archive South East at University of Brighton and Brighton & Hove Libraries. Read more about Queer Heritage South: Live Archive at Museums & Heritage Advisor and Scene Mag.
- The Coast is Queer received a very positive review from Scene Magazine; 'The Coast is Queer: A Lighthouse for LGBTQ+ Literature' described it as a "masterclass in festival curation".
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Feras Alkabani has been elected Co-President of SARN UK, which has now been registered as a UK Charity. This is Feras’s second trusteeship - after that of BRISMES - of a prominent MENA-focused learned society. As part of this role, Feras has been invited to participate as a panellist in an event organised by the Middle East Association in London to mark a year since the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria on 8 December. Feras will be joined by a panel of diplomats, politicians, business leaders and journalists to discuss the situation in Syria a year on.
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Jack Zeniewski has received nominations for several films, including a piece featuring superstar DJ (and Sussex local) Carl Cox. Recent nominations include: Best Documentary Short at the International Motor Film Awards 2024; Best Independent Film at the International Motor Film Awards 2025; Best Short Documentary at the PDX Portland Motorcycle Film Festival 2025; Best Documentary Short at the Grand Motoring Film Awards 2025; and Best Journalism and Factual Entertainment Award at the Grand Motoring Film Awards 2025.
External engagement
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Feras Alkabani hosted on campus the first international conference of the AHRC-funded SARN UK (Syrian Academics and Researchers’ Network in the UK). Revolving around the theme of Rebuilding Syria, the two-day conference featured a diverse range of academic, cultural and political activities, including a keynote lecture by Professor Aziz Al-Azmeh and two exhibitions. Read more about the SARN UK Conference. Feras was also invited to give a book talk ‘Richard Burton and T.E. Lawrence: the Snake Charmers of Empire’ at the HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre for Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge. Feras’book is now on the reading lists of relevant modules offered by the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Cambridge.
- Danny Bright and Lee Westwood as Noise Peddler, Dylan Beattie as Furrowed, and James Burns' ambient project Robinson's Village are amongst the 'push.to.play' line-up; an immersive night of boundary-pushing art, which is the debut live event by the Sussex-based group PATCH, made up of students, staff, and alumni, taking place at the ACCA on 23 October. Read more about push.to.play at The Argus and an interview with organiser, Georgina Curtis at Sussex World.
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Mat Dimmock, Andrew Hadfield and Clive Webb were all participants in the well-attended Sussex History Day held as part of this year's Shoreham Wordfest.
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Ivor Gaber, Emeritus Professor, discussed President Trump’s second state visit to the UK on BBC Radio Sussex. He said the motivation was trade, with the offer extended at the time of new US tariffs, in a successful attempt to soften those effects on the UK. Ivor has also written an article in The Argus discussing the lack of public trust in politicians, advising it is important to have a strong media which holds politicians to account and for the majority of people to participate in voting.
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Peter Robinson, Associate Professor in the Department of English at Japan Women’s University, has written about his time as a Visiting Research Fellow at Sussex's Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research. Read Peter’s reflections in ‘Gardens & Gardeners of Sussex: Ownership, Community, Legacy’.
- Martin Spinelli commented in a Daily Mail article about how mass-produced AI podcasts using entirely virtual hosts and automated production are flooding the market and threatening independent creators by lowering entry costs and saturating the space. Martin warned that this deluge will make it “harder for independent podcast discovery” without platform-level support.
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David Tal spoke to local radio Heart FM about proposals for peace in Gaza, noting the difficulties of reconciling such disparate demands and emphasising the challenges for negotiations. He also appeared on LBC News, commenting on President Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza, and said that it is now up to President Trump to bring an end to a war “that can be ended”.
- Jane Traies spoke to BBC Radio about a special screening of 3000 Lesbians Go to York as part of The Coast is Queer Festival, a film which documents the Libertas! and Lesbian Arts Festivals which took place in New York in the 2000s. Listen on BBC Sounds (from timestamp 20.40).
New work and publications
- Joanna Callaghan's Goodbye Breasts! is having its UK premiere at Lewes Depot on 11 November as part of the CineCity film festival, followed by Q&A with Joanna. Tickets for the screening at Lewes Depot are available here. Find out more about Goodbye Breasts! at CineCity.
- Tom Davies' article 'Beyond Radical Chic: The Black Panther Party' has been published on History Today. In the article, Tom argues that the Panthers’ legacy is far more than “radical chic” — it’s a living set of contradictions that continue to challenge assumptions about activism, race, and power.
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Adrian Goycoolea's new feature documentary A Mixtape for Stom will be screened at the ACCA on 13 November as part of the CineCity film festival. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Piotr Cieplak, tickets for the screening are available here. This follows the film's world premiere at the Chicago Underground Film Festival on 20 September. Find information about A Mixtape for Stom.
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Ambra Moroncini has presented in Chicago, at the Newberry Library, her research paper on Shakespeare's adaptation of Boccaccio's Decameron II. 9 for his play Cymbeline (1610).Her paper has been selected to be included in the American Celebration for the 650 Anniversary of Francesco Boccaccio's death.
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Micheál O'Connell will present the paper ‘Artificial Stupidity and Resistance After AI: the Need to be Misunderstood?’ at the ‘After AI’ Symposium, an interdisciplinary holistic discussion on Artificial Intelligence.
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Helen Tyson analysed Mark Hussey's Mrs Dalloway - Biography of a Novel in her book review for Theartsdesk.com.