The Headlines - Friday 13 November

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Every week our staff, students and alumni reach millions of TV watchers, radio listeners, newspaper readers and Twitter scrollers around the world with their research, activities and expert comment.

From international headlines for the winner of this year's Goldsmiths Prize, to interviews and comment pieces on spectrophilia, artificial intelligence, and Serbia, here's a round-up of the latest headlines.

Goldsmiths

A number of Goldsmiths academics wrote to the Times Higher Education and Guardian this week in response to the government’s Green Paper on teaching in universities. The authors argue that the paper is “likely to lead to higher tuition fees for many, increased state intervention into the organisation and delivery of higher education, more bureaucracy for staff and less autonomy for students’ unions”.

English and Comparative Literature

The Goldsmiths Prize and its winner Kevin Barry made headlines across the nation this week – as well as trending in London on Twitter during and after Wednesday night’s ceremony. Upon receiving the award, Barry commented: “I haven’t got a humble streak: every time I’m shortlisted I think ‘I’m going to win that’. But this is special. There are tremendous writers on this list, and it was great to be there with them. It’s really cool to win it – it’s a really cool prize. If the novel loses innovation it’s f****d."

Psychology

Why do babies laugh? What happens to their brains and bodies when they do? Caspar Addyman appears on BBC Radio 3 this Sunday in a conversation with Queen Mary historian of emotions Tiffany Watt-Smith about his research into babies’ laughter.

The National Autistic Society’s magazine, Your Autism, reported on Elisabeth Hill’s research into the length of time parents are waiting for autism diagnosis for their child, and the impact it has on their stress levels.

Chris French was quoted in the Yorkshire Post’s report on 40 children being taken suddenly ill at a remembrance service this week. Commenting on the phenomenon of mass hysteria, he said: “In general, [such episodes] are simply due to the power of suggestion. In cases such as these, once one or two children have fainted - in this case, the hall was quite warm - a degree of panic sets in.”

History

Dejan Djokić’s article on Serbia’s response to the refugee crisis was published on several websites and in several different languages this month, including on Open Democracy (in English) and in German on the website of Germany’s most prominent daily paper Neue Zürcher Zeitung. The Serbian section of Germany’s BBC-equivalent, Deutsche Welle, also commented on the essay and translated sections. Dejan explains how Serbia, “the seemingly perennial bad guy” is “finally leaving the dark side of their history behind”.

Theatre and Performance

The Irish News reports that Ben Levitas is among speakers at a Maynooth University’s conference this weekend on the effect of the 1916 Rising and Irish independence on the Irish Protestant experience and psyche. Ben will examine playwright Sean O'Casey's contribution to understanding revolution, social change and conflict the country.

Computing

Mark Bishop appeared on Monocle 24 radio this morning in a roundtable discussion on artificial intelligence and its dangers. A recording is available on Youtube.

Alumni News

Design alumna Marion HA Lean is part of the all-female tech team launching Pillow Talk, a wristband, speaker and app which allows you to feel your long distance partner’s heartbeat on your pillow wherever they are. Their Mail Online article has been shared more than 4,000 times, and Pillow Talk also attracted articles in Wired, Business Insider, TechCrunch, The Next Web and more. Since Tuesday’s launch they’ve raised almost £30,000 on Kickstarter. Read more on our news pages.

An obituary to John Bossy - who worked at Goldsmiths in his first academic post from 1962-66 - was published in the Guardian this week. Professor Bossy was a historian “whose work transformed understanding of the transition from medieval to modern Christianity”. He moved to Ulster in 1966, was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1993 and spent a large part of his career at the University of York.

The Guardian also published an obituary for John Norris, an Art student at Goldsmiths in the 1950s. He won a scholarship to the RCA in 1955 then went on to dedicate his painting (and life) to nature. Among other achievements, John designed a set of Royal Mail postage stamps in 1966 on British birds and provided illustrations for the Natural History Museum and London Zoo.

Library

Photographs and other material from the Women's Art Library Magazine Archive will appear at the gallery Chelsea Space from 17 Nov – 18 Dec, reported Artlyst. Selected by Maria Walsh and Mo Throp from the Chelsea College of Art, the Goldsmiths collection of mainly black and white photographs are the material remains of a dynamic independent art publication dedicated to the debates and documentation of women’s art from 1983 to 2002.