Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy

It was so delightful for this week’s interview to meet Jo Pearsall, Deputy Secretary of Council and the Court at the University of Kent. Jo was a History student at Kent from 1989-92 and in this very sprightly interview she talks about how strange it felt to return after ten years to work in the same place as when she was a student. Originally from Tamworth in Staffordshire, Jo was the first perso...

It was a pleasure this week to interview Abi Hawkins, Head of Religious Education at Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School in Canterbury. Abi teaches Key Stages 3-5 and she explains that she always wanted to become a teacher and why she especially enjoys teaching subjects she struggled with the most at university, e.g. Philosophy of Language. Abi, who was born in Canterbury and brought up in Whitsta...

My guest this week is Darren Griffin, Professor of Genetics and Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Reproduction at the University of Kent. Darren works in the field of IVF and the human genome as well as, more recently, the genomic structure of dinosaurs.  He was born in Aldershot and grew up in Leeds and in this very insightful conversation Darren explains why he was an oddba...

Professor April McMahon is the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Education and Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Kent, and it was a great pleasure to meet her for this week’s interview. April was born in Edinburgh while a Beatles concert was taking place nearby and she recounts at the start of our conversation how her father was defined more by his absence than his presen...

My guest in this week’s fascinating and very candid interview is Jeremy Scott, Senior Lecturer in English Language and Literature at the University of Kent. Jeremy was born in Brentwood, Essex, and talks about growing up in what was known as the ‘stab’ capital of the Metropolitan area and how Romford has changed in the decades since. We discuss why pubs are an important part of the British landsca...

This week it is a privilege to interview Canon Dr. William Price who taught me when I was an undergraduate student in the University of Wales in the early 1990s. William Price was born in Colwyn Bay and went to Lampeter in 1970 as a History lecturer, and stayed until 1997. He now lives in Wem, Shropshire. His father was a curate and William read History at Keble College, Oxford. In this hugely ins...

It is my huge pleasure this week to interview Professor Karen Cox, Vice Chancellor of the University of Kent. Karen was born in Pudsey, West Yorkshire, and grew up in the Yorkshire Dales before going to university in London to study Nursing. She talks about her parents’ background, both of whom left school at 16 and were married at 18. Her father experienced redundancy and was involved in Trades U...

Mark Connelly is Professor of Modern British Military History at the University of Kent and in this very candid and wide-ranging interview Mark begins by talking about his family background. He was born to a German mother while his father, who is a London cab driver, is a mixture of Irish and Russian. Mark also talks about how his love of history was precipitated by reading Ladybird History Books...

It was a pleasure this week to interview Olly Double, Reader in Drama and Head of Comedy and Popular Performance at the University of Kent where he has been based since 1999. We talk about how his work in stand up emanates from his time as a Drama student in Exeter. Olly grew up in Lincolnshire where his father was an Education Officer and we learn why as a child Olly was frightened of ‘Scooby Doo...

My guest this week is Cecilia Sayad, Senior Lecturer in Film at the University of Kent, where she has been based since 2008 and is presently working on a project on horror and people’s desire to engage with the supernatural. Born in Brazil, Cecilia moved to the US and then grew up in Sao Paulo before returning to the US to undertake a PhD. Cecilia talks about the accidental set of circumstances wh...

This week I have interviewed Dan and Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok who were based in Kent from 1975 until 1997 when they moved to Lampeter after Dan was appointed Professor of Judaism. Dan is originally from Denver, and is of Hungarian descent, while Lavinia descends from an established middle class English family whose father was the lawyer of the Church of England. Dan talks about how he found out when h...

My guest this week is Taylor Weaver. Originally from Texas, Taylor came to Canterbury in 2014 in order to undertake a PhD in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Kent. We learn why Taylor sought from early in his life to conceal his Texan accent and Taylor talks about the culture shock of coming to the UK. Taylor’s parents divorced when he was in kindergarten and he lived with...

It was a delight this week to meet Will Wollen, Director of Public Engagement in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Kent. Will is an actor, and teaches actors, and wasn’t planning on being an academic. Will was born in Kent and grew up in Dorset, though his parents spent many years living in Kenya, where his older sisters were born. At University, Will studied French and Philosophy and...

It was a pleasure this week to interview Kyla Greenhorn who is studying for a PhD in Religious Studies at the University of Kent. Kyla was born in Kansas and she discusses the reasons why so many American students choose to study in the UK. She decided from a young age that she wanted to move to Europe and now sees the US as a foreign country. She talks about how her family is predominantly Republ...

It was a privilege to catch up again with Peter Moore who came to the University of Kent in 1971 and taught Religious Studies over the course of the following 40 years. Peter begins by discussing the composition of the department when he arrived where he was only one of three staff in Religious Studies. We discuss the influence of Ninian Smart and how Peter came to discover Religious Studies throu...

My guest this week is the newly ordained Revd. Danny Pegg. Danny shares with us how when he was at University, where he studied Religious Studies and Comparative Literature, he had no faith and theology was, at the time, something of an academic passion. We learn how a sudden experience led Danny towards a belief in God. Danny uses the analogy of fandom and refers to a ‘lightning bolt moment’ to e...

It was a great pleasure to meet up again with Angela Voss for this week's Nostalgia Interview. Angela works in the Faculty of Education at Canterbury Christ Church University where she runs the MA programme in Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred. She begins our conversation by talking about how she brings together esoteric wisdom traditions with transformative learning and the new methodological possib...

For my final interview from southern Scotland, it was a pleasure to meet David McNaughton, who was, until recently, Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion at Florida State University. We begin our conversation by discussing the incongruities of celebrating Christmas in Florida and whether and how it might be deemed an inversion of what is natural and right. David grew up in Gateshead and r...

It was a pleasure to meet Milja Radovic for my penultimate interview from southern Scotland. Milja is carrying out interdisciplinary research on acts of citizenship in film as well as in film and aesthetics. She was born in Belgrade back when it was the capital of Yugoslavia during the reign of Tito, and we begin our conversation by discussing her experience of sitting on an Ecumenical film jury i...

In the third of my series of interviews conducted in southern Scotland, it was an absolute delight to catch up with Kris Jozajtis, who teaches Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies in a secondary school in North Lanarkshire, having previously undertaken a PhD in religion and film at the University of Stirling. We learn why Kris, who grew up in West London in the 1960s to parents who were refu...

It was a pleasure to meet Andrew Hass, Reader in Religious Studies at the University of Stirling, on a recent trip to Glasgow. Andrew has been at Stirling since 2003 after undertaking a PhD in Glasgow in the 1990s. Originally from Canada, Andrew discusses the concepts of home and belongingness and how we identify ourselves in a global context (e.g. ‘a citizen of the world’), prompting questions of...

My guest this week is Juliette Jones, a freelance writer/journalist, currently based in Glasgow, who studied Religious Studies in the University of Wales in the late 1990s. Juliette was born in Inverness and she talks about the route that took her to Lampeter and the appeal of living and studying in a smaller place. Her earliest memory is from her time in playgroup and she talks about the relative...

For this week’s interview I had the great pleasure to meet Reshmi Dutta-Flanders, Honorary Research Fellow in English Language & Linguistics at the University of Kent. Reshmi grew up in Calcutta and came to the UK to study English at King’s College, London, in 1989. In this fascinating conversation, Reshmi compares her experiences of previously studying literature in India and how she was able...

It was a pleasure to meet Valeska Hass who works as a Project Manager in the Business Improvement and Projects Unit at the University of Kent, where she has been for the last two years. She started working in the automotive industry delivering intercultural training for sales teams and we discuss the role and importance of transferable skills. Valeska was born in Germany but grew up in Namibia in...

Anthony Manning is Dean for Internationalisation at the University of Kent, and in this latest interview Anthony talks about his experience of growing up in a large family but a small town on the Isle of Man where his relatives ran a joke shop. We discuss the sense of community, based on old fashioned values, which the shop elicited, and how its recent closure has resulted in a flood of nostalgia...