academics today in my talk one of the
things that I am here at the University
of Houston via is being senior lecturer
in film and television studies which
some people of course regard as Mickey
Mouse degree and I want to precisely
challenge that idea that film and
television studies or Media Studies in
general is not necessarily Mickey Mouse
degree and I also want to challenge this
idea of academics having this idea or
people having ideas around academics as
people living in ivory towers of Hermits
actually we can do different by making
things a little bit differently and I
want to give you two examples from my
own experiences today in teaching and in
also filmmaking not that I have ever
been a filmmaker before this film that
I’m going to share with you today I’ve
always been on the theory side of things
but I want to kind of challenge those
ideas while at the same time talking a
little bit about this concept of voice
and our based the title of my talk on
Malala yousafzai’s very great of course
quotation one child one teacher one book
one pen can change the world and with my
students I kind of try to do that if not
changing the world we kind of tried to
contribute to it even in a little kind
of way and I want to give those examples
share those examples with you today to
encourage you to think about doing
things a little bit more differently in
your daily lives and sometimes with
absolutely not much effort either just
passion perhaps back in 2011 I developed
this new brand new module at the time
which was first of its kind in the UK
called women Islam and media and you can
imagine that it was a very sensitive
topic there were modules about women in
Islam modules about Islam and media
different universities and
from parts of the UK or around the world
and nothing really brought these three
aspects together and the university
decided that it would be a great idea to
do a press release because he had Islam
and women in it you know so we did and
boy did we receive media attention from
Huffington Post – The Guardian – for
some reason that I cannot discover yet
marie-claire and they all were really
great in identifying the first course of
its kind kind of module that I offered
and they were very generous in their
giving space in their papers and so on
but then I’ve learned one thing never
ever read the comments below the news
piece that is written about you
particularly if is to do with Islam and
women and media not that I’m RELIGIOUS
at all not that I have to justify that
position really but I was called an
alien terrorist who came to this country
to promote Islamist ideologies to our
kids I was kind of proud of that then I
was accused for invading our
universities by teaching fantasy I’m
kind of proud for the fact that I
managed to copy and paste these comments
put them on a PowerPoint slide to share
them with my students in the classroom
to explain to them why actually we
needed to study this module and in fact
as you will have seen in the pictures
behind me in the previous slide every
time the media picked up on it even
though the module itself was very much
of a critique of how women particularly
when it comes to Islam were represented
in the media they almost always use the
same image of a veiled woman in a burqa
representing or putting those
stereotypes back into place but what I
want to do what we did actually as a
class lots of I mean the modular has
been running from 2011 till almost now
and lots of students have been coming in
taking the module but what have they
done that was a bit different together
with me we worked collectively they made
media rather than critiquing media they
went and made a documentary about the
importance of this particular topic that
were of course inspired by the modules
content the media professionals came to
the classroom because of those press
releases and they were talking about the
ways in which they were representing the
media and BBC Asian Network in fact did
a radio program with the students
interviewed them about their experiences
of being on the course so that was quite
an interesting kind of initiative
Norfolk and Suffolk Constabulary’s visit
the classroom every so often almost
every year they do come and talk about
some of the issues we pick up on and how
police in this case deals with them
things like force marriage things like
on there based abuse and so on and what
I would like to remind us all of us
today is the importance of collecting
people in any journey that you take in
different roles that you have different
with your different identities that you
have really collect those people and I’m
going to come back why to why it’s
important to collect these people in a
minute when when I talk about growing up
married and then things start a little
bit bigger within the module I got
personally asked to provide a report
contributor a report by the House of
Lords on British religion and belief in
British public life and they wanted me
to contribute on the area of women
Islamic media having heard from the
press attention that the module received
this was back in 2015 I didn’t want to
do it alone I thought it would be good
to bring students back into the game and
actually they turned their own
assignments into responding to this
report and then in the end we were all
cited in the final report as well which
was quite an exciting journey to respond
to national policy and
therefore having some kind of impact
taking the teaching and learning
experiences from up you know from within
the classroom to outside it but not yet
just generally within the campus but
nationally at the level of policy and
then it led us three of us in fact at
the University to be funded by the Arts
and Humanities Research Council in fact
on a module or no on the project not
module obsessed about modules on the
research project about British Muslim
values which gave cameras to Muslim
individuals around the region of East
Anglia so that they could go and make
films about their own experiences of how
they understand Britishness and this
concept very problematic in fact concept
of British values so these think things
kind of lead to each other different
things and it’s important to collect
people for reasons I’m going to come
back to in a minute 2015 I’m sitting in
my ivory tower typing up theories around
women and Turkey where I originally come
from hence the funny accent and and I’m
thinking I was writing an article about
force married child brides and so on in
Turkey and then I suddenly had this
thought I said everything is fine with
my work but there’s something
intrinsically missing from what I do
which is women
I’m categorizing women as a single
entity I’m talking about women in Turkey
well there are different gazillions of
different types of women in Turkey that
need to be considered so I thought you
know what I’m going to drop theory for a
minute and I’m going to see if I can get
for free a camera from the TV studio
which is the sort of the sponsors of
this event as well UV ATV get a TV
camera get the support of students who
may be interested in contributing to
this project with me and make a short
documentary film about forced marriage
rather than theorizing forced married so
I was shifting
in fact from critiquing media talking
media to activism feminist activism in
terms of making media so I got a camera
literally with zero budget absolutely no
money whatsoever apart from a ticket to
Turkey went to Turkey in 2015 July
filmed talked to for women who told me
about their own memories of what it
meant for them to be child brides
brides forced into marriage and I was
fascinated I was powerless and I thought
this is this these voices need to be
heard and these stories need to be
shared so I brought those stories back
together with my students who worked as
edit editors who worked as director
system directors executive producers on
the project we built a parade a little
team and with absolutely zero budget we
made growing up married which was
released in 2016 not in big theatres or
anything it did go to LA de which I’m
proud to say but it went from the news
went from New York Times to al-jazeera
to Sky to BBC and so on and it started
receiving attention and this is the
point where I want to talk tiny bit
about the importance of collecting
people on the way when we’re doing
things when I was in touch with Norfolk
Constabulary for example to do with
women is Lemon media when I was in touch
with different media outlets when I was
working on that particular course they
all came back together to support this
project and the media attention this
received is an evidence of that but then
Norfolk Constabulary suggested something
much more exciting which has been going
on for the last couple of years they
decided to use the film because they
needed to hear voices of women who have
actually really experienced this because
women don’t necessarily talk out about
these kind of experiences of domestic
violence sexual violence and so on in
this case forced marriage or being a
child bride
they decided that they would use the
film in their training of police
officers safeguarding children unit
force married units and NHS
professionals and other health care
professionals and something to do with
women in Turkey just four of them their
stories became incredibly impactful and
powerful for policies in the UK so it’s
really important for us to perhaps see
and understand how significant it is for
films to travel and doing things
differently through films rather than
sitting in ivory towers and typing
behind our computers theories that only
very limited people we’re a very limited
number of people would would perhaps
read as I said House of Lords connection
was another one that wasn’t to be missed
Westminster asked me to go and do a talk
at the House of Lords about the film so
I introduced that there at the House of
Lords at least Westminster as well and
again it was in line with the upcoming
new bill on forced marriage something
that you wouldn’t necessarily imagine
one would do working on Middle East and
median gender politics and so on
so what I would like to do before I
finish is to show you the teaser of the
film which should take about four
[Music]
The Voice you hear is the voice of Leila
who was 14 when she was forced to marry
she tells me she stopped singing as a
result of the domestic violence she
experienced during her marriage today is
the first time in years that she is
Bernie I’m cuckoo – yo you’re
saying I may go to a circus my god Joe
Couto exchange’ be over you da da behave
dr. Fallon Chicago Commission on dr.
stern mighty advances
Chicanos or logic or a break today
according to straight lead although joke
about joining talk about yeah
each particularly interested in with me
if they only said clearly the only
German will be keratin elastic on
greeting card the bank are gonna be in
Japan the cherry chip the boku no naka
de la whistles Cosby Olaf so like ever
happened to clicker question is these
voices you hear are the voices of child
brides recollecting their stories from
the time you started watching this clip
until now
eighty-one girls across the world became
right so thank you very much for sharing
that with me and what I would like to
end with is that academics have got this
reputation of being Hermits living in
ivory towers film and television studies
have got this reputation as being Mickey
Mouse degrees and I wanted to precisely
challenge that film and television
studies is important teaching is very
inspirational in fact very powerful and
in fact impactful if we take it outside
the classroom and the concept of voice
is really important because through my
work perhaps if it I have done anything
it’s about giving voice to students
enabling students to voice their own
concerns either in the classroom but
mainly outside it at the level of
national policies but also through films
doing theory is valuable but at the same
time doing practice of that theory is
even more valuable and film travels and
more films travel more voices we do get
to hear and you never know how important
and significant in fact it will be for
Turkish women’s voices filmed somewhere
a couple of years ago by somebody some
academic and how impactful it would be
in the UK for policies about teaching
officers teaching healthcare
professionals in terms of what it means
to be a child bride what it means to be
forced into marriage and I’m very proud
that students my students have been part
of that journey with me today and I want
to leave you with that thought
of getting a camera in your hands and
talking to people and hearing different
stories from different people and you
never know where that journey is going
to take you thank you you