Meet Our Researchers

EK Neale: Academia profile / @ek_neale

Kate is studying the music cultures of Cornish migrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries. During this time, thousands of miners left Cornwall to find work across the new worlds and British colonies, transporting their culture alongside their labour and industrial expertise. Grounded in historical ethnomusicology, Kate’s work primarily focuses on the spread and development of Cornish Christmas carolling traditions in South Australia and California. This thesis therefore examines concepts and effects of change in both tangible and intangible realms: how tangible social and geographic change can impact on, and be reflected in, intangible cultural materials and practices. Her work also aims to uncover how perspectives of these musical traditions, from their historical context to contemporary practice, have changed and developed over time. Kate is primarily supervised at the School of Music at Cardiff University, with co-supervision at the Institute of Cornish Studies at the University of Exeter.

Emily Carroll: LinkedIn profile : Research blog

Emily is a first year PhD student based at the universities of Reading and Bristol, under the supervision of Dr Mary Lewis, Dr Gundula Muldner and Dr Joanna Bruck. Her research project aims is to examine the transition of cremation practices from the Iron Age into the Roman period in Britain, through exploring the funerary responses to changes in culture, technology and ritualism. The Roman conquest of Britain in the 1^st century A.D saw a significant cultural migration. The cultural and social response of the Iron Age natives to this invasion has been examined extensively in material culture, but only recently has burial data been recognised as a potential medium for investigating this phenomenon. Emily’s project is therefore ‘understanding change’ with regards to the possible uptake of Roman funerary traditions and ideology into the native cremation culture of Iron Age Britain.

Marta Pozzolo: Academia Profile


Marta is studying the Diaspora of Italian Intellectuals in Great Britain between the 1940s and 1960s. Her project is focusing in particular on its representative figures: the political theorist Alessandro Passerin D’Entreves, the literary historian Carlo Dionisotti and the novelist Luigi Meneghello. These academics had strong links with the Partito d’Azione and the Resistance movement, in the period immediately before the end of the Second World War. After the disillusion of the postwar Italy they left their country, settled down in Britain and held teaching posts in London, Reading and Oxford. Marta’s thesis aims to understand how this cultural shift and change of viewpoint influenced their works in both their creative practice and their theoretical contributions. These intellectuals successfully forged a new, pluralistic and multicultural vision of Italian culture, shaped by their common experience of exile. Marta is primarily supervised by Dr Daniela La Penna at Reading and her co-supervisor is Prof. Charles Burdett at Bristol.


Joe Connelly

Joe is interested in the concept of a reason, and what it means for a reason to have weight. He is specifically interested, in moral reasons, and is considering whether and in what sense they are a distinct kind of reason, and whether or not moral reasons carry some special weight, just in virtue of being a moral reason. It is from this perspective that Joe considers several long-standing questions in ethics, such as whether moral considerations are overriding, and the problem of moral demandingness.

Joe understands change in the light of normative force – how reasons or considerations can have the ability (to varying degrees) to change what we believe and feel, and especially how we act.

Joe is supervised at Reading by Prof. Phillip Stratton-Lake and Prof. Brad Hooker, and at Southampton by Dr. Jonathan Way. Joe feels ever so slightly uncomfortable referring to himself in the third person.

Carolina Rangel de Lima

Carolina is a first year PhD student studying Roman lamps in Lusitania (modern Portugal and Spain). Her project aims to understand the functional and symbolic meaning of lamps in Lusitania and the impact of lighting on the use of space and the structure of day/night and ritual activities. This will give a better understanding not only of the change in the lived environment brought on by the introduction of artificial lighting, but also the changes to the local identity after the Roman conquest. Her research will hopefully introduce new ideas about the ‘Romans’ of Lusitania and how they developed over time. She is particularly interested in change and how it can be studied using a large corpus of material.

Carolina is supervised by Dr. Hella Eckardt (University of Reading) and Dr. Louise Revell (University of Southampton).

Jo Bryant: Academia Profile

Jo is a second year PhD student researching the status and integration of minority faith groups in acute healthcare chaplaincy. Healthcare chaplaincy is a state funded profession which intends to meet the religious, pastoral and spiritual needs of NHS patients. Thus, chaplaincy provides illuminating insights into the ways in which religion is enacted in public life and institutions, as well as the complex relationship between the religious and the secular. However, with few exceptions, healthcare chaplaincy literature and discourse still tends to be dominated by Christian voices, despite the rapid growth of minority faith involvement over the past two decades. This research aims to involve a broader range of voices in conversations about chaplaincy, while examining the developments relating to multi-faith chaplaincy on the ground through a series of case studies.

Jo is supervised by Prof. Sophie Gilliat-Ray and Dr. Andrew Todd at Cardiff University.


Steven Roberts: sr15732@bristol.ac.uk

Steven is investigating the history of widescreen technology in Hollywood and British cinema, focusing upon film production, aesthetics and marketing during the 1950s. Past studies of the widescreen revolution have chosen to focus upon the US and/or film aesthetics in 'CinemaScope' productions, though new material has sought to extend the scope of research in multiple ways. Steven aims to understand alternative forms of innovation within widescreen cinema, across national borders, by looking at Paramount's large-format 'VistaVision' process and the films in which it is employed. From White Christmas to Vertigo, Powell and Pressburger to Marlon Brando, the project will synthesise an array of texts from the 1950s in order to chart the cultural life of so-called 'high-fidelity' motion picture entertainment. Steven is particularly interested in the material changes which new film technologies embody and effect, whether that be in the studio, onscreen, or in society more broadly.

Steven is a first-year PhD candidate based at the University of Bristol. His research is supervised by Prof. Sarah Street (Bristol) and Dr Helen Hanson (Exeter).


Jaanika Puusalu

Jaanika is interested in the human condition in these turbulent technological times. Her research considers whether the rapid spread of online communication forms, and the myriad of connections they offer, are affecting peoples’ capacity for self-awareness and self-realisation. In particular she is interested in the effect that such 'mediated communication' is having upon teens.

Jaanika's suggestion is that these aspects of contemporary society should be seen as sources of alienation that force people to identify with the masses through pre-formed false identities and to develop a distorted relationship with the other. To test this hypothesis, Jaanika brings the philosophical framework of alienation to bear upon an empirical study of anti-bullying and anti-cyberbullying policies in English schools and the manner in which these track the transition of bullying from the playground to the virtual world.

Jaanika is supervised by Professor Christine Hauskeller and Professor David Inglis at the University of Exeter.



Ben Holmes

Ben is studying British charitable projects for German civilians during the course of the First World War and its aftermath. In particular, the project will seek to discover and analyse people’s motivations for helping those from an enemy nation, how they did this, and how successful they were. 

This topic sits at the heart of a wider debate about change within the history of humanitarianism. The First World War, and the forces of devastation it released, is often cited as key transformative moment in the way charities approached their work. Ben, therefore, seeks to understand change by studying the factors which influence change or continuities within a particular historical setting (in this case, early-twentieth century humanitarian work), how change was interpreted by those experiencing it and how it is interpreted looking back from today. 

Ben is supervised by Professor Andrew Thompson at Exeter and Dr Emily Baughan at Bristol.