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Sit Down with a Screenwriter – A conversation with Nick Willis
Below is the transcription of an interview I conducted with Nick Willis, director of recent short film Speak For Herself. The film was created as part of the BBC Arts New Creatives talent development scheme, and can be watched here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0chtfnx Callum: Welcome to Sit Down with a Screenwriter. Today I’m joined by Nick Willis,… Continue reading
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‘1984’ or 2023? How applicable is Orwell’s vision of technological surveillance to today?
Guest essay written by Ottavio Pagliaro, final-year English and Drama student at the University of Kent, Canterbury. In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell envisioned a world that was split into three superstates, each perpetually at war, each totalitarian, with Britain part of the superstate of Oceania and renamed “Airstrip One”. In Oceania the ‘Party’ maintains… Continue reading
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Book Appraisal: See Me Rolling by Lottie Jackson (2023)
Penned with candour, this profound memoir by disability rights activist Lottie Jackson offers a thought-provoking assessment of the challenges faced by disabled people. By way of introduction, Jackson poses a series of philosophical questions, the answers to which ‘hold the key to obliteratingdisability inequality’ (Jackson 2023, p.10). In eight subsequent essay-chapters, Jackson seeks to answer… Continue reading
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The Different Attitudes to Motherhood in 1890s Literature.
‘Woman is, if she could only realize it, man’s superior by reason of her maternity – the negation of that is her greatest cowardice’ (George Egerton). What different attitudes to motherhood are represented within 1890s literature? Among the many ideas around women’s rights that were called into question during the 1890s, those surrounding motherhood were… Continue reading
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How Heroism is Defined in War Narratives.
For many years, war has been the subject of a wide range of films, books and poetry. Of the many themes covered in these texts, ‘heroism’ has long since been an interest for both audiences and writers alike. This essay will analyse and explore the portrayal of heroism in two American war narratives; Randal Wallace’s… Continue reading
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Is the Family a Place of Trauma in Twenty-first Century Literature?
Twenty-first-century literature gives readers a modern take on a range of important themes. One such theme, which is as important now as it ever has been, is that of the family, which is ‘universally important’ in young adult literature (Parsons and Rietschlin 2014, page 145). This essay will argue that the family is a place… Continue reading
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Thoughts on Twenty-first Century Poetry.
I have learnt a range of new ideas about contemporary literature through my university studies, as this essay will explore. My reflection will focus on experimental poetry, particularly Bianca Phipps’s ‘Stay With Me’[1] and Paula Claire’s ‘chrysalis’.[2] Reading experimental poetry (hereafter referred to as ‘EP’) felt like a daunting endeavour before I studied it. I… Continue reading
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Can Feminist Utopian and Dystopian Writing Lead to Meaningful Change?
Throughout history, writers have envisioned radically different societies to the current. The corpus of utopian literature has speculated what a better world may look like, and dystopian writing has offered frightening propositions for a world worse than our own. Of the many aesthetic techniques used by these writers, cognitive estrangement is perhaps the most effective… Continue reading
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Female Independence in Sarah Grand’s ‘When the Door Opened.’
The 1890s saw the emergence of the ‘new woman’ in literature and culture, a term coined in Sarah Grand’s essay ‘The New Aspect of the Woman Question’.[1] Empowered with a desire for new experiences,[2] this cultural persona embodied a defiance of traditional Victorian feminine ideals, such as motherhood, and offered a vision for women to… Continue reading
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Seven Useful Texts in My Animal Studies Bibliography.
In this post, I will reveal my annotated bibliography of animal studies texts. These books are those that I have found particularly useful during my studies. Lippit explores the impacts that Darwin’s ground-breaking Theory of Evolution had on contemporary philosophy and psychology. The chapter discusses how deserting old scientific ideas surrounding humans and animals “would… Continue reading
about the author – Callum mcgrath
Recent English graduate of Loughborough University, passionate about film and literature. On this site, I post my academic essays and related writing.
Recent Posts
- Sit Down with a Screenwriter – A conversation with Nick Willis
- ‘1984’ or 2023? How applicable is Orwell’s vision of technological surveillance to today?
- Book Appraisal: See Me Rolling by Lottie Jackson (2023)
- The Different Attitudes to Motherhood in 1890s Literature.
- How Heroism is Defined in War Narratives.
The Ventriloquist 