SAS Welcomes New Inclusion, Participation and Engagement Fellows

Four new Fellows are set to join the School of Advanced Study (SAS) through the Inclusion, Participation and Engagement fellowship programme, Mary O'Reilly, Danae Peguero-Bueno, Cydney Phillip and Anja Rekeszus in October. The fellows will be based in the areas: languages, literatures, and cultures, in association with the Institutes of Classical Studies, English Studies and Languages, Cultures and Societies; and human rights and policy, in association with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. 

ICS, IES, ILCS and ICwS have been enhancing the extent to which they work together across all spheres of their activity. The intention is to ensure that this collaboration benefits the subject areas that they serve and strengthens the ability of the institutes to pursue agendas that lie at the heart of the mission of the School of Advanced Study.

One such agenda is the support of participatory and inclusive research across the humanities. While the question of inclusivity is intrinsic to every kind of research, some researchers are addressing societal challenges, including addressing structural inequalities, through work in partnership and collaboration with communities beyond the university. This research is vitally important, but the expertise and connections to address it do not necessarily lie within the walls of the traditional academy.

Thanks to funding from Research England (RE), the fellowship was established in 2022 as a way to scope new possibilities for engaged humanities practice. Following the success of this first phase of the fellowship, the School has received renewed funding to expand the programme into its second year, supporting five early career researchers from October 2023. Each brings specific expertise and practice in inclusive and participatory research to their projects:

Dr Mary O'Reilly, Listening to the Ancient World: How Ancient Representations of Listening Can Inform a 'Good Listening' Strategy

Dr Danae Peguero-Bueno, Don't Touch My Monument!: A Coro to Understand Together the Resistance to Interventions in Colonial Monuments in the 'First City' of the 'New World'

Dr Cydney Phillip, Drawing Breath: Mapping Artistic Responses to the (In)visible Burden of Toxic Air in Black and Diaspora Communities Across London

Dr Anja Rekeszus, Retelling the urban fox: A collaborative fairy tale

Find out more about each of the Fellows and their projects.