Faculty news

Dr Rohan Price’s most recent book –Violence and Emancipation in Colonial Ideology – has been lauded in reviews by two of the best known sinologists in Europe. Professor Kerry Brown, Director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, said that Rohan’s book was ‘passionately argued’, written with ‘conviction and authority’ and allows ‘fundamental new insights’. Professor Bjorn Ahl, Chair of Chinese Legal Culture at the University of Cologne noted that Rohan’s ‘unparalleled command of both scholarly literature and primary sources makes the book an invaluable contribution’.

Rohan’s new book project – Nietzsche, Heidegger and Colonialism – has received the green light from Routledge History to be published in its Studies in Modern History series later this year. The review panel said the publishing proposal was ‘enthusiastically approved’ and that it will make a ‘stellar contribution’ to Routledge’s history list.

The new book draws on overseas archival research sponsored by the School of Law and Justice and takes its examples from wartime collaboration in Japanese Hong Kong (1941–1945), the plateau and fall of the Kuomintang in Hong Kong (1945–1949), the race riots of Singapore (1950–1965) and its anti–Communist purges and jailings (1948–1965).

Rohan has also been commissioned by Peter Lang (New York) to write a monograph on ‘Nietzsche and colonial nostalgia’.

Aidan Ricketts, Acting Deputy Head of School (Teaching & Learning), March – July 2020, Lecturer

The start of 2020 certainly brought a challenging few months where I unexpectedly took the Deputy Head (Teaching & Learning) role. It has been a rapid learning curve, but also a good chance to adapt some of the skills I have developed dealing with highly charged protest situations over the years to dealing with the chaos of managing this portfolio during crisis.

Dealing with academic workloads and casual contracts will probably always be the most challenging part of this role, even in times that might pass for ‘normal’ but the University freeze on new contracts (without special approvals) had the effect of removing the latitude the school previously had to issue contracts on an ‘as needs’ basis and required us all to get more organised.

It was an enourmous challenge for the carousel of people engaged to assist with the contract writing, a job that went through at least three hands before the steady hand of the school’s HR & Finance Officer, Leanne Dietrich returned from leave.

Huge thanks to all the professional team for their support, advice and faith during the transition. Special thanks to Jane Gilmour for her constant support and for systematising the workload calculation process, to Theresa Crawford for being ever ready to help, and to Leanne Dietrich and Kim King for dealing with contracts. Thanks to the Unit Assessors for your forbearance.

The onset of the Covid pandemic ushered in many weeks where nobody really knew what new restriction would come next, in the university and in our personal lives. There was a sudden University closure, followed by a rapid transition to online teaching and to working from home. It has been amazing to see how well the SLJ has pulled together and worked so well as a team throughout. Working from home actually seemed to free up a lot of time for many of us to work more efficiently.

With both the teaching and then with take home exams, the School of Law and Justice was pro-active, and many thanks to the Teaching and Learning Committee for the problem-solving session we had that helped us arrive at a model for offering take home exams that would be efficient to administer and maintain rigour as far as was achievable. As far as I am aware our exams process has been relatively trouble free.

Despite the challenges it has been great working so closely with such a supportive team and I have to confess to have enjoyed the problem solving and learning curve a little more than I expected or should admit to.

Congratulations and best wishes to Dr Evgeny Guglyuvatyy for taking on the role permanently and all the best dealing with the uncertainties and challenges ahead.

Following some much needed leave I am now looking forward to refocussing on research. Needing to complete my PhD and also work on co-authoring a new book on anti-protest laws with Professor Michael Head. We have a Routledge contract arranged for this exciting new publication.