Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

All Outputs (89)

What does decolonising the curriculum mean? (2020)
Presentation / Conference
Evans, M., & Sobers, S. (2020, June). What does decolonising the curriculum mean?. Presented at UWE Festival of Learning 2020

What does decolonising the curriculum mean? What practical steps can I make to adapt my teaching? Myra Evans and Dr Shawn Sobers explore the issue and ideas and actions to make change. The session has been designed to help staff to consider how they... Read More about What does decolonising the curriculum mean?.

The Emperor and the Pianiola: A children's book for adults (2019)
Book
Sobers, S. (in press). The Emperor and the Pianiola: A children's book for adults. Bath: Imperial Voice

This illustrated photo-book explores the story of Emperor Haile Selassie and the Ethiopian royal family coming to live in the city of Bath following Mussolini's invasion, and how they used pianola music to create a sense of sanctity for the family at... Read More about The Emperor and the Pianiola: A children's book for adults.

A Call For A Black Bristol Filmmakers Archive (2019)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2019, November). A Call For A Black Bristol Filmmakers Archive. Presented at Afrika Eye Festival 2019, Watershed, Bristol

In this introduction to the Sudanese documentary film 'Talking About Trees', Sobers brings the storyline to a Bristol context. He charts Bristol's own history of professional Black filmmakers, and argues that making films alone is no longer enough.... Read More about A Call For A Black Bristol Filmmakers Archive.

Point of View - Positioning public engagement central to your research. Case Study: Ethiopian echoes in a British Landscape AHRC Research Networks project (2019)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2019, November). Point of View - Positioning public engagement central to your research. Case Study: Ethiopian echoes in a British Landscape AHRC Research Networks project. Presented at Meet the AHRC - Delivery Plan launch, Cardiff University - School of Journalism

This key-note presentation discussed approaches to research design and methodology, and offers thoughts towards how to connect research projects closer to real world experience and impact. The three areas discussed were; 1) Public engagement as the c... Read More about Point of View - Positioning public engagement central to your research. Case Study: Ethiopian echoes in a British Landscape AHRC Research Networks project.

The politics and myth of the Untold Story: From personal liberatory practice to decolonial discourse (2019)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2019, November). The politics and myth of the Untold Story: From personal liberatory practice to decolonial discourse. Paper presented at Decolonial methodologies: Arts, Politics, Europe, Body-politics Research Unit, Aarhus University, Denmark

This talk will discussed a journey in creative practice and deconstructing motivations of making - from the personal to the political and the blurs inbetween. Sobers discussed modes of using creative culture to challenge to the colonial centre, and e... Read More about The politics and myth of the Untold Story: From personal liberatory practice to decolonial discourse.

Me and my work: Education, Photography, Filmmaking, and Rastafari philosophy (2019)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2019, October). Me and my work: Education, Photography, Filmmaking, and Rastafari philosophy

In this wide-ranging talk, Sobers discussed how he got to be where he is now with his career, shared some examples of his photography and films, and talked how Rastafari and Pan-Africanism has informed his creative practice and life choices.

TEDx - Ethiopian Echoes in the Bath landscape, and three lessons those echoes can teach us. (2019)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2019, September). TEDx - Ethiopian Echoes in the Bath landscape, and three lessons those echoes can teach us. Presented at TEDx Bath 2019 - Echoes of the City, Holborne Museum, Bath

This TEDx talk discussed how the history of the Ethiopian connection with the city of Bath can shed light on how we live today. The talk addressed three key lessons; 1) You can find sanctity in unexpected places 2) The need for calmness in times... Read More about TEDx - Ethiopian Echoes in the Bath landscape, and three lessons those echoes can teach us..

Democratising a decolonised functional and cultural heritage space (2019)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2019, September). Democratising a decolonised functional and cultural heritage space. Paper presented at CKC 2019: Rethinking, Resisting and Reimagining the Creative City Conference, Watershed, Bristol

This presentation discussed how Fairfield House in Bath, the former residence of Emperor Haile Selassie, could be considered a decolonised space - predominantly Black led, catering for predominantly (though not solely) Black audiences. Sobers discu... Read More about Democratising a decolonised functional and cultural heritage space.

Connection People and Places - Fairfield House case study (2019)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2019, September). Connection People and Places - Fairfield House case study. Presented at Stephen Lawrence 19th Annual Memorial Lecture

Fairfield House was one of the case studies for the Connection People and Places research project, led by the Stephen Lawrence Trust in partnership with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). In my opening talk I explained the history... Read More about Connection People and Places - Fairfield House case study.

Colonial Complexity in the British Landscape: An African-centric autoethnography (2019)
Book Chapter
Sobers, S. (2019). Colonial Complexity in the British Landscape: An African-centric autoethnography. In S. De Nardi, H. Orange, E. Koskinen-Koivisto, & S. High (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Memory and Place. London: Routledge

This chapter explores the notion of what sites of collective significance in the UK can mean to people of African descent , whose ancestral lands were formerly colonised by the British Empire. With such a premise, the methodological position of this... Read More about Colonial Complexity in the British Landscape: An African-centric autoethnography.

When the Prophet was angry with the Emperor: On Marcus Garvey's critique of Haile Selassie I, and the aligned legacy of both their logic (2019)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2019, August). When the Prophet was angry with the Emperor: On Marcus Garvey's critique of Haile Selassie I, and the aligned legacy of both their logic. Presented at Do you Remember? Commemoration for Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Kuumba Centre, Bristol

Discussing the challenging moment in 1937 when Marcus Mosiah Garvey strongly criticised Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie for moving to Bath in the UK, to rally for support for Ethiopia's liberation from Mussolini's fascist invasion. Garvey attacked t... Read More about When the Prophet was angry with the Emperor: On Marcus Garvey's critique of Haile Selassie I, and the aligned legacy of both their logic.

Rivers and oceans: Navigating pictorial legacies of enslavement in New Orleans and Bristol (2019)
Journal Article
Beauchamp-Byrd, M., & Sobers, S. (2019). Rivers and oceans: Navigating pictorial legacies of enslavement in New Orleans and Bristol. https://doi.org/10.1163/2405836X-00401009

This two-part article is a comparative analysis of two late twentieth-century works of art: John T. Scott’s Ocean Song (1990), an abstract, large-scale public art sculpture in New Orleans, Louisiana in the US, and Sold Down the River (1999), a major,... Read More about Rivers and oceans: Navigating pictorial legacies of enslavement in New Orleans and Bristol.

Re-definitions (educational app) (2019)
Other
Sobers, S. (2019). Re-definitions (educational app). London

As a result of speaking at the National Conference for Religious Education Advisers in July 2018, Sobers was approached to speak about the Rastafari faith on the RE-Definitions app, which is an educational resource featuring key terms and definitions... Read More about Re-definitions (educational app).

Sankofa dialogues: Making things to make sense of colonial saturated embodied landscape (2018)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2018, December). Sankofa dialogues: Making things to make sense of colonial saturated embodied landscape

Sankofa is a Ghanaian symbol which represents the idea that there is no shame in going back to fetch that which you have forgotten. The symbol is of a bird looking back with a seed it its mouth. The common interpretation is that the seed represents c... Read More about Sankofa dialogues: Making things to make sense of colonial saturated embodied landscape.

What is Rastafari? History, beliefs and philosophy of the Rastafari movement (2018)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2018, October). What is Rastafari? History, beliefs and philosophy of the Rastafari movement

This talk sheds light on the core history and beliefs of the Rastafari faith, which Sobers considers to be the world's best secret. Sobers challenges some common misconceptions regarding the public perception of Rastafari culture. This talk also shed... Read More about What is Rastafari? History, beliefs and philosophy of the Rastafari movement.

Haile Selassie in exile, and life in the city of Bath (2018)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2018, October). Haile Selassie in exile, and life in the city of Bath

This talk sets the scene of the circumstances of how and why Emperor came to the UK in exile, and how he came to settle in the city of Bath.

Transatlantic slavery connections with Bath (2018)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2018, October). Transatlantic slavery connections with Bath. Presented at Transatlantic slavery connections with Bath, by Dr Shawn Sobers, Museum of Bath at Work, Bath, England

The predominant discourse relating to the South West's connections with the transatlantic slave trade tends to focus on Bristol, though Bath has got its story to tell. This public talk for Black History Month discusses the rise of Bath's economic for... Read More about Transatlantic slavery connections with Bath.

An auto-ethnographic dialogue with archive (2018)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2018, July). An auto-ethnographic dialogue with archive. Paper presented at Reframing Film Heritage, Watershed, Bristol, England

This provocation offered an analysis of a piece of photographic artwork I produced, a self-portrait inbetween two enslaved Africans. The Africans portrayed are named Jack and Delia, enslaved on a South Carolina plantation, photographed by Joseph T. Z... Read More about An auto-ethnographic dialogue with archive.

Hidden pluralities: Rastafari in the South West and the house where God lived (2018)
Presentation / Conference
Sobers, S. (2018, July). Hidden pluralities: Rastafari in the South West and the house where God lived. Presented at National Conference for Religious Education Advisers, The Bristol Hotel, Bristol, England

In this keynote presentation Sobers discusses the intricacies of the Rastafari faith, how it has been underestimated as a cultural movement, and how its legacies have local, national and global significance. The paper is presented in three parts.... Read More about Hidden pluralities: Rastafari in the South West and the house where God lived.