Nottingham Trent University (NTU) employs some of the brightest minds, with many coming together for a series of captivating conversations to explore different issues and events facing society as part of the Research: Reimagined podcast.
Getting closer to the researchers who inspire change and find answers to the questions that matter most, the latest podcast episode hosts Panya Banjoko and NTU’s School of Arts and Humanities Professor Sharon Monteith who discuss the significance of Black History Month in an episode titled Preserving our legacy: Black History beyond October.
Podcast host, Panya Banjoko, is a UK based writer, poet and a PhD candidate at NTU with a Vice Chancellor awarded scholarship writing a practice-led PhD rooted in Nottingham Black Archive.
Celebrating the impact of black heritage
In the UK, Black History Month takes place throughout the month of October, providing everyone with an opportunity to share, celebrate and understand the impact of black heritage and culture.
As Black History Month drew to a close, Panya and Professor Sharon Monteith reflected upon the significance of Black History Month and their research into black legacy and heritage.
Their efforts included revealing untold narratives of Black Activism, both in the United States and also in Nottingham, UK. By bringing to light heroic stories of lecturers, poets, and orators, Panya and Sharon work to preserve their histories and inspire the next generation.
Researching race and rights
Before joining NTU, Professor Sharon Monteith was Professor of American Studies at the University of Nottingham, and founding co-director, with Zoe Trodd, of the Centre for Research in Race and Rights. From 2013-2016, she was founding Director of the Midlands3Cities-AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership (a consortium comprising University of Nottingham, Nottingham Trent University, De Montfort University, University of Leicester, University of Birmingham, Birmingham City University, and she put in place multiple creative industry partners). Prior to that, she was Associate Dean of the University of Nottingham Graduate School with responsibility for the Faculty of Arts. In 2014, she was a member and assessor for two subject areas in Sub-Panel D: History and English.
Professor Sharon Monteith's interdisciplinary research focuses on activism, particularly literary activism, the American South, the US civil rights movement and massive resistance to civil rights, the 1960s, African-American and Black British history, American literature and culture, feature film, documentary and art cinema, journalism and media cultures, contemporary fiction and comparative contexts of class, race and ethnicity. The methodologies she deploys include memory studies and memory activism, archival work and oral histories.
She currently supervises PhD students working on social justice and literature in various ways: the decolonisation of YA fiction with focus on First Nations authors in the US and Canada; Black and white women's activism in the East Midlands via practice-led documentary art filmmaking; the literature of the US South, contemporary British fiction; and a practice-led CDA on how Nottingham Playhouse engages the city's diverse communities
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Disclosure: Where Women Work researches and publishes insightful evidence about how its paid member organizations support women's equality.