Deciding on topics for the assignments of my studies in neuropsychology are an easy task for me. I took up this learning because I wanted to understand the autistic brain. Now that we are in the modules regarding aural processing, it feels only natural that I – as an autistic musicologist and musician – write about the autistic brain on music. Hashtag “cognitive music science” or “psychology of music” or “neuromusicology”. But what exactly do those terms mean?
“What’s your resolution?” Facebook once asked me. And I thought “Umm, just 1024 x 768, why?” . Oops. But of course, I do have many wishes and dreams for 2020! Below, I’ve posted a selection of my goals and I hope that this blogpost will inspire others to write down their New Year’s resolutions as well. Oh and some tips – grounded in neuropsychology – for sticking to them can be found here. Happy New Year! 🙂
As an aspiring polyglot and a student of neuropsychology, I have a sweet spot for untranslatable words (from foreign or historical languages) that describe emotions, psychological states and/or behaviour. Because I got so many positive reactions about my work on hiraeth, I decided to share this interest with you by means of a new category for this blog: “Lost in Translation“. This first entry will be about the Korean concept of Nunchi, as I was recently interviewed about this by journalist Annemieke Riesebos for the Dutch magazine Grazia.
Next to my artistic research, I am also involved in academic research. On this page, you can read more about my current academic research projects. I mainly focus on three themes – the Cyborg Mermaid, Inside the Autside, and #KingAlfred – but also dabble in related subjects. As an academic, my keywords are autism, cyborgs, fanart, games, languages, medievalism, mermaids, music(ology), (neuro)psychology. The Cyborg Mermaid As a PhD student at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands, I am writing my thesis about the Cyborg Mermaid, or to be more concrete: about the ways modern media empower people to create new stories based on mermaid mythology. What fascinates me most about the study of fantastic beings is that the way in which we shape them tells us so …
Last week, I got a nice brooche – or fibula, if you like – from the British Library. It is an enamel pin of an old fashioned typewriter, the kind of machine that’s also featured in the sidebar of this weblog. I like typewriters a lot, but not just because of my love for writing, my fascination for retro technologies, the funny scenes in the movie The Secretary and the memory of playing Leroy Anderson’s 1953 piece with our youth orchestra. No – for me, the typewriter is also a symbol of the emancipation of the writing and publishing woman.
Last year, I jokingly wrote this (alter) ego-inserting fanfic, placing my PhD topic in the story world of Netflix’ The Last Kingdom. It was published on different fora, but lacked a stable place online. So, I decided to republish it here. Enjoy!
Romantic comedies, who doesn’t watch them every now and then? Cozy in your onesie, with Ben & Jerry’s on the couch, swept away by the handsome man and the beautiful woman in the all too familiar plots. At first they hate each other, but eventually, they fall in love (unfortunately, in real life, I often see this in reversed order). Or: they have to overcome all kinds of obstacles in the outside world in order to live happily ever after (at least that is what the characters seem to think at the time). Since the early beginnings of movie making, the so-called “romcom” has been a popular genre, which served as an identification for heterosexual, monogamous, cis-gender viewers (and made their expectations unrealistically high). And then, last …