Reflections on being diagnosed as neurodiverse as an adult, and why we need to emphasise the challenges faced by neurodiverse people in addition to celebrating their achievements.
The Uncritical Whiteness of Edinburgh Activism
01 Sunday Sep 2019
A brief look at the Stop the Coup protests in Edinburgh and the lack of representation of migrant and other precarious voices
Back on Stage at the Edinburgh Fringe
02 Friday Aug 2019
Posted in PhD Life
Performing with Adventurers Wanted for their 2019 Fringe show, Banishment
A Natural 20 Performance: When a Dungeons & Dragons Session Becomes Sheer Brilliance
20 Wednesday Feb 2019
Posted in PhD Life
A recap of a recnet D&D session in which we went very much off the rails and parodied Star Wars and Star Wars fandom alike, in a story that truly exemplified performative sympoesis.
A Year of Volunteering in the Mental Health Sector
09 Wednesday Jan 2019
It has been roughly a year since I started volunteering at a mental health charity. This is a reflection on what motivated me to do so, and how these motivations have developed over the course of the past year.
The Grand Finale of ‘Adventurers Wanted: Rebellion’ at the Edinburgh Fringe 2018
27 Monday Aug 2018
Posted in PhD Life
The last four hours of the Adventures Wanted: Rebellion show at the Edinburgh Fringe, 2018, and how it was a fitting end to the adventure that brought out the best of table-top RPGs.
Arts Festivals and the ‘Hostile Environment’: the Need for More Nuance
21 Tuesday Aug 2018
Posted in Comment
Tags
Edinburgh International Book Festival, Hostile Environment, Immigration, Structural Violence, WOMAD Festival
Recent visa refusals for visiting artists and writers at festivals in the UK have prompted discussions about the ‘Hostile Environment’. This is an intervention that argues that characterising the problems faced by these artists as aspects of the Hostile Environment is misleading, and the conversation around immigration needs greater nuance.
Adventurers Wanted: Rebellion at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
12 Sunday Aug 2018
Posted in PhD Life
Tags
Adventurers Wanted, Dungeons & Dragons, Gabrielle Hecht, Public Engagement, Table-Top Roleplaying Games
At the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year, I was on stage as part of a show called ‘Adventurers Wanted: Rebellion’ a couple of times, which was a live play of Dungeons & Dragons, combining table-top role-playing with improvised story-telling. These are some of my thoughts on how I managed to make my PhD research dovetail with the character I played.
‘I Want to Tell You’: Beatles Songs for Talking About Mental Wellbeing
29 Sunday Jul 2018
Posted in PhD Life
Tags
A Day in the Life, George Harrison, John Lennon, Mental Health, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, The Beatles
When it’s difficult to initiate conversations about mental health, it might be easier to talk about mental health through the medium of Beatles songs. We will have to pretend, however, that none of these songs are about drugs. But many of the Beatles songs express complex and contradictory states of mind, which can be quite reassuring and illuminating.
Hailsham Dark: Turning Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go’ into a Table-Top Role Playing Game
24 Tuesday Jul 2018
Posted in PhD Life
Tags
Cthulhu Dark, Graham Walmsley, Jane McGonigal, Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, Table-Top Roleplaying Games
Over the last two months, I adapted Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go’ into a table-top role playing game, and I enjoyed myself immensely in the process. This is my account of what it was like adapting the novel, what difficulties I faced while GMing such a game, and what I gained from the whole thing.