This event marks the re-launch of Makings, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal on the cultural and creative industries. The journal, formerly known as the Creative Industries Cluster Journal, is managed by the Creative Industries Cluster of the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research. The first volume of the rebranded journal is set to be published later this year. To introduce and unpack the theme of this volume, some of the contributors will present their short takes on alternativity, based on their submissions to the journal.
Valentina Anania is a PhD student at the University of Nottingham. Her research focuses on transmedia authorship and on the ways in which authorial authority can manifest in and around narratives that expand across media. She holds a BA in Modern Languages and Literature from the University of Udine, Italy, and an MA in English Literature from University College Cork, Ireland. Her research interests include pop culture, adaptation studies and intertextuality. Valentina is also part of the managing committee for the ECREA Women’s Network, with whom she works for the dissemination of diverse scholarship and the development of equality in Communication and Media Studies.
Rana Noor Mohamed is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual PhD student at the University of Strathclyde. The main focus of her PhD is conducting interdisciplinary research within the fields of Contemporary History and Diplomatic Studies. She is currently looking at French-UK and EU diplomacy. She has interests in several types of diplomacy including linguistic and cultural diplomacy which will form a chapter of her PhD. She has a First Class BA Hons in Languages and International Relations from the University of Greenwich. For her undergraduate dissertation, Rana looked at soft power and cultural diplomacy whilst examining the role of the French language in France’s international status. She also has an MRes in History from the University of Strathclyde. As a French speaker and Francophile, she is interested in many aspects of French culture. As an ethnic minority, Rana has an interest in the Parisian banlieues and has spent time in Seine-Saint-Denis learning about the area, Verlan, and the local cultures which inspired her to carry out this study.
Saba Karim Khan is an author, award-winning filmmaker and educator, whose writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, Wasafiri, Huff Post, DAWN, Express Tribune. She has read Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford and works at NYU Abu Dhabi.
Her debut novel – Skyfall – was recently published by Bloomsbury. Her doc-film, Concrete Dreams: Some Roads Lead Home has won awards at the global film festival circuit in Paris, Berlin, Toronto, USA and India and is now on Amazon Prime Video. Before joining the Academy, she worked as Country Marketing and Public Affairs Head at Citigroup. Born in Karachi, she now lives in Abu Dhabi with her husband and two daughters.
Zack Ditch is a researcher currently in his first year of PhD studies at Nottingham Trent University, funded by the Midlands4Cities (M4C) institution. His research aims to explore the socioeconomic dimensions of regional drag scenes and investigate how these cultures of performance mobilize communities and economies of particular regions, focusing around Nottingham: a mid-sized city with an emerging drag scene despite the absence of established queer performance venues. The regional focus of this work hopes to shift common explorations of drag away from the metropolitan to smaller cities and scenes often omitted from research fields. The work engages with an ethnographic and performance observation based approach, as the purpose of this research is do obtain a more developed comprehension of drag performance’s catalysing, influence on, and mobilization of communities within Nottingham and other medium-sized cities in the Midlands.