The most recent issue of Surrey Undergraduate Research Journal (Vol. 2, No. 1) features articles written by two School of Arts undergraduate students. 

Adrianna Michalska, who is currently undertaking her professional training placement year as part of the BA Dance and Culture programme, is the author of the article ‘The Disruptive Power of the Disabled Body in Dance: Lloyd Newson’s The Cost of Living’. Adrianna’s essay considers perceptions of disabled bodies in society, and reflects on how they are deconstructed in the film through the analysis of selected dance scenes with a disabled dancer. Adrianna said: “As the world of inclusive dance practice rapidly develops, it is important to simultaneously engage in academic research to further enhance the understanding of what happens when a disabled body enters the dance stage.”

Recent graduate of the BMus Music programme, Christopher Pidgeon, has contributed an article entitled ‘The Forgotten Work of Clara Schumann: German Society’s Influence on a Female Composer’. In it, Chris evaluates Clara Schumann’s life and the factors that led to her being cast by the wayside in relation to her male counterparts (including her husband Robert), despite overwhelming evidence of her compositional ability and the aesthetic value in her music. Chris says that “gender studies appears to be a big topic in musicology, [so] it seemed like a relevant but also very interesting area to research.”

Surrey Undergraduate Research Journal (ISSN: 2058-5551) is an online, multi-disciplinary journal, whose articles are peer-reviewed and copy-edited by a team of the University’s postgraduate researchers. The current issue may be accessed here: https://surj.surrey.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/surj/issue/view/3