A message from the Dean
In 2019 the School of the Arts at Liverpool
celebrates its tenth anniversary. Since its
founding in 2009, it has grown substantially,
and is now home to over 2500 students
and almost 300 professional services and
academic staff. In this time, the School has
developed into new areas such as Music
Technology, established a presence on
our London campus with the thriving MSc
Professor Peter Buse
Strategic Communications and Year in
Design, and pioneered work-based learning with our placement module
SOTA300 and the Year in Industry option. Each year we welcome into
the second year of our programmes over 100 students from XJTLU, our
partner institution in Suzhou, China, and this past year no fewer than 10
Philosophy students travelled for the Year in China programme.
This Anthology collects together some of the best work from the School in
2018-19, produced by undergraduate students across the School’s five
disciplines. In it, among many excellent contributions, you will find Ellie
Houghton’s account of her research internship on the vital #Speakout
project on online harassment; Qinyu Wu’s analysis of ‘drosscapes’ and
the transformation of industrial wasteland in the UK; Harriet Barton on
the ‘anthropocene’ and environmental catastrophe in contemporary
writing; George Wilson on Nietzsche, suffering, and the utility of art; and
Natasha Covill on Adorno, Schoenberg, and music that is ‘resistant to
the world’. In addition to students grappling with big ideas and engaging
with urgent contemporary issues, you will find some fine short fiction and
high-quality illustration work.
If you are reading online, you will be able to link through to a recording of
a performance by Music students in the Leggate Theatre, alongside the
Solem Quartet. This is an important reminder that not all student work in
the School is text based. For example, next year will see the launch of
a student record label in the Music Department, and in June every year,
Architecture hosts its Annual Degree Show where you can see the fruits
of the year’s work in the studios. If you are in Liverpool, I encourage you
to attend this inspiring showcase of student talent and thinking.
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