STAMP - St Anne's MCR Podcast St Anne's College

After a very long hiatus, St Anne's Academic Review (STAAR) and STAMP welcome back Ramani Chandramohan, an alumna of the College, who wrote about Medieval French fabliaux in St Anne's Academic Review, Volume 11. The fabliaux were comic tales written in the 12th and 13th centuries performed by travelling minstrels. Ramani talks about the theatricality of fabliaux in live performance and the unique role of jongleurs who entertained the audiences. 

 

Ramani Chandramohan completed her master's in French Literature and bachelor's in French and Classics at St Anne's, and was very active in the graduate community as a Welfare and Academic Affairs Officer. She’s now at The Queen’s College, Oxford reading for a DPhil in Medieval French literature. Her interests include depictions of religious conversion, interfaith interactions and Classical reception within Old French texts, and the manuscript transmission of the global narrative cycle, the Seven Sages of Rome. 

 

This interview marks the fifth and final episode of the Fresh Academic Voices series, which featured five contributors to Volume 11 of STAAR, published in Michaelmas 2021. 

Medic and neuroscientist Dora Markati explains how some viruses can be used as vectors – or platforms - to treat genetic disorders. Her paper on this topic, published in St Anne's Academic Review (2021), presents evidence on a range of diseases that have benefited from viral-mediated approaches. She hopes to see more efficient treatments for such diseases being made available to children across the world. 

Dora studied medicine at the University of Patras, Greece, and trained in children's medicine in London and in Cambridge. She completed a Masters in Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and is now at Oxford undertaking a DPhil in Paediatric Neurology. Her current work involves clinical studies and trials for the treatment of rare childhood diseases affecting the nervous system, with a focus on Angelman Syndrome. 

What are emotions? Are they ingrained in the brain’s architecture, or are they socially constructed? We dive into the wonders of the human brain with Conrado Eiroa Solans, a Masters candidate in Psychological Research who studies the nature of human emotions. In his paper for St Anne's Academic Review, Conrado presents the two schools of thought – the classical biological perspective and the social-constructionist view – and he draws evidence from a lesion case study and brain scans to explain the nature of what human beings feel. 

Born and raised in urban Madrid, Conrado has lived in rural Northern California and snowy suburban Minnesota. He has a BA in Psychology from The College of St Scholastica in Duluth, and he has worked as a Research Assistant at the universities of Yale, Stanford, and Michigan. Beyond academia, Conrado enjoys spending time in the great outdoors, trekking the backcountry and hidden lands.

What is language contact? How and why does it occur? Brittany Hause, a DPhil candidate in Linguistics will explain this phenomenon through a Spanish poem 'Amor de un campestre' – A Rustic's Love – by Bolivian writer Pedro Rivas. The use of regionally specific vocabulary that characterises the piece illustrates several of the effects of language contact, which continue to distinguish the variety of Spanish spoken in Santa Cruz from other varieties heard today in Bolivia and around the world.

Brittany is preparing an article on language contact for Volume 11 of St Anne's Academic Review. Prior to Oxford, Brittany lived and worked in Bolivia, the USA, and South Korea. They hold an MPhil in Linguistics from Oxford, and a Bachelors degree in English, Italian and Spanish from Florida State University. Brittany is also an active member of the student community at St Anne’s, previously MCR Welfare Officer, and now Editor of Spark Reviews for STAAR. 

Enjoy hearing Brittany in conversation with STAAR Humanities Editor, Erin Nickalls about her article and research on language contact. 

St Anne's Academic Review's Editor-in-Chief, Ye-Ye Xu, welcomes Naomi Hoodless, a teacher of languages from Cumbria, to talk about her research paper on LGBT students' experiences in British schools. Naomi carried out her investigation during her PGCE training year at Oxford while teaching German and French at her placement school. She argues that teachers should be trained to handle LGBT students' concerns, and that schools are uniquely placed to support these students as they come to terms with who they are.

This is the first of five interviews in Fresh Academic Voices, an exclusive series produced by St Anne's Academic Review, the college's interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal edited by graduates. Guests on this series will talk about their academic papers to be published in Volume 11 of STAAR. Stay tuned for special insights on a range of topics – from human emotions and genetics, to Medieval French literature and the varieties of Spanish being spoken across the world. 

An exciting new series of conversations with five contributors to St Anne's Academic Review (STAAR) – the college's very own interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal edited and published by graduates.

STAAR Editor-in-Chief, Ye-Ye Xu launches the series by introducing Naomi Hoodless, Brittany Hause, Ramani Chandramohan, Theodora Markati, and Conrado Eiroa Solans who'll be writing for the 11th Volume. Stay tuned for special insights on a range of topics – from human emotions and genetics, to Medieval French literature and the varieties of Spanish being spoken across the world.