This section presents short bios of some of the authors that have published in the WRoCAH Journal. This section was curated following the release of Issue 7 and therefore the list of contributors presented below is not exhaustive.
Yan Chen
I am a PhD student at the University of Leeds. My research is a corpus-assisted study of defendant questioning in Chinese criminal trials. I am interested in forensic linguistics, corpus linguistics, and conversation analysis.
Catherine Edwards
Catherine Edwards is a Doctoral Researcher in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York. Her thesis explores systems of written communication in Anglo-American spy fiction and film. Research interests include literary intelligence studies, espionage in popular culture, and the representation of the writer/writing on screen. Her article on whistleblowing films in the age of paranoia was published in The Conversation in 2019. She holds an MPhil in Playwriting from the University of Birmingham.
Marielle Hehir
Marielle was born in Manchester and studied at Manchester Metropolitan University before completing an MA at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. Currently she is undertaking a practice-led PhD at the University of Leeds with a studentship award from WRoCAH. Thesis title: On Shaky Ground: land, Paint and Change. Marielle has exhibited widely as well as taking part in several international artist residency programmes. Recent exhibitions include: Genius Loci: Painting the Spirit of Place, 2022, APT Gallery London; Spectral Ground, 2021, The Woodshed Gallery, Folkestone (as part of Folkestone Triennial); Nightswimming 2018, Curated by LLE Gallery at Mission Gallery, Swansea; Squeeze, 2017, The Hive, London; Manchester Contemporary with LLE Gallery, 2016, Granada Studios, Manchester. In 2017 she was shortlisted for The John Ruskin Prize Exhibition, The Millenium Gallery, Sheffield and in 2016 she was shortlisted for Contemporary British Painting Prize Riverside Gallery, London.
Kenrick Ho
Kenrick is a second year PhD researcher at the University of Leeds. His practice-led thesis looks at how unique listening experiences can be created using embodied cognition theories as the basis for composition. His supervisors are Professor Martin Iddon and Dr. Freya Bailes.
Adam Koper
Adam Koper is a WRoCAH PhD student based at the University of York’s Department of Politics. Adam holds a BA in Politics and an MA in Political Theory, both from the University of York. His research interests include critical theory, irrationalism in modern society, and critical political economy. Adam's research project analyses the political beliefs and assumptions expressed in conspiracy theories by placing them into particular social contexts. Approaching conspiracism from the perspective of critical theory, his project argues that conspiracy theories attempt to critique capitalist society but are unable to move beyond the ideology of capitalism.
Alvaro Gonzalez Montero
Alvaro Gonzalez Montero is a postgraduate researcher at the University of Leeds. His research interests include Hispanic life writing, especially Gil de Biedma’s diaristic production, queer theory, medical humanities, and psychoanalysis. Alvaro is starting his PhD at the University of Leeds on October 2022 under the supervision of Prof Richard Cleminson and Prof Duncan Wheeler. His thesis is titled “Illness and queerness in Spain: Spanish life-writing from 1936 to the present” and is funded by the AHRC via the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH).
Daniela Nicolaescu
I am a PhD student at the University of Leeds. My thesis assesses the multilingual and transnational dimension of the performances of three 20th-century Jewish Romanian avant-garde poets: Tristan Tzara, Isidore Isou, and Gherasim Luca. I hold a BA degree in French Language, a BS degree in Psychology from the University of Bucharest and an MA in Professional Language and Intercultural Studies from the University of Leeds. Since 2017, I’ve been publishing experimental poetry and short novels in Romanian, French and Spanish literary magazines.
Oliver Rudland
Oliver Rudland is a composer and community musician undertaking a PhD at Leeds University. His research investigates the use of co-creative techniques in the composition of large-scale community opera projects. He has presented his research at the International Centre for Community Music (York St. John’s University), Høyskolen Kristiania University (Olso), the Biennial International Conference on Music Since 1900 (Royal Birmingham Conservatoire), the Transnational Opera Studies Conference (Bayreuth University, Germany), Leeds University Research Symposia, and the Cambridge University Composer’s Workshop. Oliver’s research has been published by Sounding Board: The Journal of Community Music and he has publications forthcoming with Context: Journal of Music Research, Tempo Journal (Cambridge University Press) and he sits on the editorial board for CePRA Journal for practice research in the arts. Oliver also teaches stylistics and composition at Cambridge University.
Niki Zohdi
Niki Zohdi (b.1997) is a composer, tenor and conductor born in Blackburn, Lancashire. He completed his music undergraduate degree and composition master’s degree at Goldsmiths under the tutelage of Roger Redgate. Niki is currently halfway through his practice-led PhD in composition at the University of Leeds supervised by Mic Spencer and Martin Iddon, exploring compositional approaches that investigate varying levels of identifiability (and unidentifiability) of existing musical materials in complex music. His music has been performed, workshopped and recorded throughout the UK and Europe by the Ligeti string quartet, Carlos Cordeiro, and Seth Josel amongst others.