I struggle to speak about what the novel-thesis for which I gained my PhD was about.

Fictioning as a method allowed me to generate a narrative in which the previously unthought and unspoken could be worded, or worlded. As the process unfolded, minor threads became more meaningful, so that the plot skipped, like a needle on a scratched record, focusing on content initially intended as peripheral, and leaving half told aspects of the story to fade into the background. Some things started mattering more than I’d imagined, answering my questions in ways I’d anticipated less. Growing more open, yet becoming more squeezed, the novel folded in on itself as social conditions, real and imaginary, pressed characters and plot into shape. I tried to show something I couldn’t tell, about how society produces certain psychic realities, and about how people may resist. It felt dangerous.

I wonder if the characters’ experiences are believable, or if doubt enters the minds of readers? People reading it say they like this kind of thing or they’re enjoying it so far. I say, ‘thank you’. I want to say, ‘Really? But have you read it?’ Can you tell me what it’s about?’ But conversations remain vague, sticking within the grooves of the good/bad continuum; the actual content remains unspeakable, unthinkable. For me now, the novel is about this very disconnect, and the ways in which it impacts the characters as they strive for relational presence and mutual recognition of the nature of the wider social realities that they’ve tried, and failed, to escape. Things that can’t be spoken, only shown. People think what they’re allowed to think; what feels safe. I am not sure I’ve succeeded in saying anything at all. Only in being difficult; a bad novelist. Showing somehing while saying nothing.

Tàr (2022) and Barbie (2023) emerged amid the clamour of #MeToo backlash. I propose that the two films arrive at a conjuncture where what it means to be an ethical feminist subject is at stake. While ostensibly operating at different ends of the movie market – Tàr as arthouse, and Barbie a blockbuster – they both offer woman protagonists grappling with what it means to be a ‘woman’ and, indeed, a feminist-woman in 21^st century western contexts. Variously positioned as too liberal; too radical; and simply a #Fail, the #MeToo mo(ve)ment has been criticised in feminist media and communication studies, and popular media for its apparent fixation on individual ‘identity’, instead of collective, progressive, subjectivity. So too, have Tàr and Barbie been critiqued in popular media, in terms of how they align with an ethical feminist subjectivity – a subjectivity who is attentive to collectivity and inclusion.

Here, I put the two films in dialogue via focusing Gloria’s monologue in Barbie, and the Juilliard scene in Tàr. Both scenes diagnose the “impossibility” of contemporary feminism but offer divergent ways out. In Barbie, we are offered a commodified, neoliberal feminist multiplicity (rather than the singular identity of ‘stereotypical’ Barbie), accessible via the market; while in Tàr, Lydia (at least in the Juilliard scene) holds to a humanist conceit that liberation is achieved via sublimation in high art, with no need for feminism. In short, we are faced with the demand: your money – in the form of commodities in Barbie – or your life – to give oneself over to one’s art in Tàr.

This paper is looks at with how both scenes articulate – that is put together, and attach, particular signifiers in relation to this question of feminism, and in particular ethical feminism in a post-#MeToo media context.

In the complex sociopolitical landscape of Northern Ireland, marked by a traumatic conflict known as ‘’The Troubles’’, spanning from the late 1960s to 1998, mural art transcends mere decoration to emerge as a possible medium for cultural expression and dialogue. I explore mural art in Northern Ireland not just as an artistic phenomenon but as a tool to reflect on community identity, political discourse, and collective memory. I examine how murals unconsciously impact and serve as poignant reminders of historical trauma and reflect the aspirations and struggles of the people.

My talk theorises the role of mural art in Northern Ireland as a powerful form of containment. Murals offer a symbolic space for both the community and individuals to process emotions and memories tied to the region's conflicted past, effectively managing the psychological tensions experienced by those living there. The concept of containment is employed to understand how murals serve as a container to hold and explore these strong emotions, providing a safe space for the integration of difficult experiences. By acting as a form of containment, murals facilitate a dialogue between the inner world and the outer world.

Viewing mural art is a form of experiential learning and a way of engaging with Northern Ireland's collective history. This talk points to the importance of murals as cultural artefacts, in facilitating conversations around learning and understanding in a traumatised post-conflict society. In doing so, it explores how public art serves as a tool in the process of cultural expression and how it facilitates the intricate interplay of trauma, history, and identity.