• Kat Gupta’s research blog

    caution: may contain corpus linguistics, feminism, activism, LGB, queer and trans stuff, parrots, London

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Corpus Linguistics 2013

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Ah, the biannual Corpus Linguistics conference…the biggest date in the Corpus Linguistics calendar, the event that Tony McEnery described as more of a bacchanal than a conference. This is one of my favourite academic conferences – it was the first one I went to as a wee MA student and I’ve been to every one since. Luckily it’s biannual or my wallet would be a thinner, sadder thing. I’ve done a lot of growing up at this series of conferences – first conference I attended, first conference I was a student helper for, first conference I got funding for, first conference I’m presenting at post-viva – and it feels a bit like home turf for me. It was wonderful to catch up with friends and to meet new people. One of the conference helpers, Robbie Love, wrote a great post on his experiences at CL2013 and I’m delighted that he found it such a friendly place. I was presenting on my PhD research, this time trying to give an overview of how the three approaches I used in my thesis fit together: corpus linguistics, three approaches from critical discourse analysis and, underpinning all of this, an awareness of the social,… Continue reading

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The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013

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Last week I wrote a post for InherentlyHuman, a blog based in the School of Law at the University of Durham. I wrote about why the Marriage (Same Sex) Act 2013 does not bring marriage equality for trans* people and highlighted three major issues with it: the stolen marriages that the Act won’t restore, the spousal veto and the binary gender encoded into the Act. I also need to write about my time at Corpus Linguistics 2013 and the Community Stage I helped to organise for Nottinghamshire Pride. Coming soon, I promise. Continue reading

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Emily Wilding Davison links

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100 years ago on the 10th June, the coroner’s jury at Epsom met to discuss a woman’s death. They discussed whether it was suicide. They wondered if it was an accident. Eventually, they ruled that the woman’s death was “death by misadventure”. The woman’s name was Emily Wilding Davison, and her death was due to the injuries she sustained at the 1913 Derby when she was struck by the King’s horse. I’m at a week-long programming course at the University of Lancaster and tomorrow I’m presenting at the UCREL Corpus Research Seminar so I’ve not had time to write much – nevertheless, here are some links to things I’ve enjoyed reading. Elizabeth Crawford on Emily Wilding Davison And That Return Ticket, Kitty Marion, Emily Wilding Davison And Hurst Park and Emily Wilding Davison: Perpetuating The Memory. Elizabeth also asks why Emily Wilding Davison is remembered as the first suffragette martyr and reflects on perpetuating her memory. Fern Riddell on Kitty Marion: Edwardian England’s Most Dangerous Woman Briony Paxman and Clare Horrie on Emily Davison and the 1913 Epsom Derby Rebecca Simpson on The centenary of the Women’s Suffrage Movement Lesley Hulonce on ‘Mummy’s a Suffragette’: Contested Womanhood Emily Wilding Davison’s… Continue reading

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My worst student

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Today I’ve been grumpily following the Same-Sex Marriage Bill debate, contemplating my thesis corrections and pouring acetic acid into my sore ear so I have to admit, I’m not in the best of moods. And then I saw that the Times Higher Education decided to encourage academics to share their stories of their worst students on twitter. Aside from the obvious problems about professionalism and ethics, I don’t like the sneering. You see, I was someone’s worst student. Not in university – I’d mostly sorted myself out by then – but in sixth-form. I was doing an A-level in something I’d previously been good at and for which I was in the top set at GCSE, but at A-level my grades plummeted from As to Es. I couldn’t understand the material – I tried so hard and it constantly defeated me. I tried reading around the subject; I tried talking myself through it; I tried just knuckling down and memorising it. It slipped away from me, no matter what I tried or how hard I tried. It’s a horrible feeling to be so utterly powerless – to feel like your intellect has abandoned you, that whatever you try you’re going… Continue reading

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Viva

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I had my viva last week and passed with minor corrections. So I am now Dr Kat. On the whole it was a really positive experience – I was only in there for about 1hr 45 minutes and both of my examiners said at the start how much they enjoyed reading my thesis and how creative it was. My internal examiner said at the start that it was going to be more of a chat and that’s pretty much how it felt. Both of my examiners are experienced researchers and I think that was reflected in their examination style – they weren’t out to win their spurs but instead were really engaged with my work. They started off with a few general questions then we went through the thesis chapter by chapter. My chair was fantastic too – she was so calm and when I waited in her office after my viva while the examiners conferred she was reassuring about my performance. I’d prepared a list of anticipated questions with bullet point responses – both viva classics and tricky things I was prepared to discuss – but interestingly, those didn’t really come up. I was most worried about Chapter 5… Continue reading

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Purple, white and green

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I recently read this post by Marilyn Roxie on the colour symbolism of the genderqueer and non-binary flag. The colours of the flag – lavender, white and dark green – are similar (but not exactly the same!) as those used by the Women’s Social and Political Union. Marilyn describes their decision to use those particular colours and their meanings as follows: Lavender (#b57edc): The mixture of blue and pink (traditional colors associated with men and women, present on the transgender pride flag) as lavender is meant to represent androgynes and androgyny. Also represents the “queer” in genderqueer, as lavender is a color that has long been associated with “queerness” , including gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities. White (#ffffff): Meant to represent agender identity, congruent with the gender neutral white on the transgender pride flag. Dark chartreuse green (#4A8123): The inverse of lavender; meant to represent those whose identities which are defined outside of and without reference to the binary. Formerly (#498022), the color is now the true inverse of lavender (#b57edc). The three colors are not meant to indicate that any of these identities are entirely separate or opposites of one another conceptually; they are all interrelated as well as… Continue reading

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life after thesis submission

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My PhD supervisor told me to have a break after submitting so I did. In the past couple of weeks I’ve been to Death: a self-portrait at the Wellcome Collection, London’s Diversity Choir’s performance of Duruflé’s Requiem, the Transpose: Cinematic Edition and, yesterday, June Purvis’ public lecture on “The Struggle For Women’s Suffrage In Britain, 1865-1928”. All of these events were fascinating in their different ways and it was nice to remind myself that I have interests outside my thesis. I also came down with a bad cold because my Faustian pacts of “please body, just let me get through this term/chapter/thesis and then you can be as ill as you want” eventually caught up with me – although more prosaically, my terrible pre-submission diet of peanuts, pumpkin seeds and cheese sandwiches might have had something to do with it. I have a viva date and will be hurling myself into viva preparation soon, but at the moment I’m writing a talk I’m going to give on Monday about trans* media representation. It’s my first 45ish minute presentation so I’m a little nervous, but luckily there’s a lot I can talk about and I’m having fun planning the structure and… Continue reading

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Submission

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So, yesterday I submitted my thesis. My supervisor told me to take a good break before we meet to start preparing for my viva, so genuinely not sure what to do with myself now that the ever-present feeling that I ought to be doing some work has lifted! Annoyingly I had to submit the thesis using my legal name as that’s what’s on the university’s records. I never use that name and if you try calling me that, I probably won’t respond as I’ll assume you’re talking to someone else. Continue reading

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The white male professor is in

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Perhaps presciently, in my penultimate post I noted that “[a]s a student, I have never been taught by someone with a non-European non-white background – and when I teach, I am incredibly aware that this may have been the case for my students”. This week, UCU released a report focusing on women and Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) professors: UCU summary Report: The position of women and BME staff in professorial roles in UK HEIs (pdf) Guardian: The university professor is always white Some of the figures they highlight include: Just one in five professors are women, despite making up almost half the non-professorial academic workforce Just one in 14 professors (7.3%) are from a black and minority ethnic (BME) background White applicants are three times more likely to get a professorial post than BME applicants Naturally, I find these figures troubling – and, if I’m honest, not a little dispiriting. The UCU report notes that BME UK nationals are particularly underrepresented – unfortunately, their data isn’t presented in a particularly helpful way to interpret this. Universities are brilliant places for worldwide collaboration and I’ve been lucky enough to work with people from all over the world. However, I do… Continue reading

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Student life and pets

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I’m currently wading through critical theory but I read this article by a student who was lonely so they bought a kitten and I’m pretty cross. Firstly, I’ve grown up around animals. My parents both grew up with pets and our family got our first dog when I was three. Apart from one horrible week where none of us coped, we have always had at least one dog since. We’ve also had fish, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, gerbils and stick insects. I’ve worked at a vet’s boarding kennels and cattery, and have also worked a bit with horses. At the moment I have five rats who live in what my mum has affectionately dubbed “the Rat Palace” and enjoy a life of luxury. I believe that animals are good for us – they provide companionship and entertainment and relaxation. However, they’re also a commitment and I don’t think the article really addresses this. Most degrees last between three and four years. Lots of animals live longer than this and in the case of cats, as much as 15-18 years. What’s going to happen to the cat after you graduate? Animal rescues are already full – are you going to contribute… Continue reading