Nicholas Boalch
Hi!
I'm an academic and theatremaker, interested principally in modern European drama, particularly Spanish and Catalan playwrights not widely known in English. I'm a graduate student in the Spanish Department of the School of Modern Languages & Cultures at the University of Durham and the School of English & Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London. As of June 2009, I'm on secondment at Forest Forge Theatre Company in the New Forest.
I'm a member of both the Green Party and Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds (here's my political compass). I'm a Bright, which means that I embrace a naturalistic worldview, free from supernatural and mystical elements. My own particular worldview is Absurdist, which means I don't believe there is any meaning or purpose in the universe.
In the interests of privacy and identity security, I sign all my email using OpenPGP, and encrypt it wherever possible. You can download my PGP public key from keyservers, or from this site (public key block, fingerprint). If you're not already using PGP for secure email, here's why you should consider it.
Be happy,
Research
My research is in translation and visual culture, particularly theatre, film, TV and comics. For my PhD I am attempting to set out an internally consistent translation theory that engages with the combination of semiotic systems present in these media which is, at present, poorly understood. (This is, believe it or not, less poncey than it sounds.)
I also have an ongoing interest in virtual culture, particularly its intersections with the visual and the development of new paradigms of communication and information exchange online.
Currently, I'm thinking a lot about comic adaptations of Augusto Monterroso's The Dinosaur.
Teaching
I'm not based in Durham any more, but when I was I taught the undergraduate Spanish modules Introduction to Hispanic Studies, Introduction to Hispanic Texts, Hispanic Media & Culture and Spanish Language 2B. I have a separate page with some resources for students of Spanish, including some illustrated timelines of Spanish history.
Publications
Conference proceedings- (Co-edited with Phoebe Ayers, Samuel Klein et al.) Wikimania 2006: Proceedings of the Second International Wikimedia Conference (Tampa, FL: Wikimedia Foundation, 2006)
- 'Lorca's Impossible Theatre: El público, Comedia sin título and the Authority of the Theatre', Beyond Spanish: The Many Lorcas, Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, 1st November 2008
- 'The Translator in the Rehearsal Room', Round Table, Translation in the Air: Translating for the Stage, King's College, London, 6th February 2009
- Review of Escribir la catalanidad: Lengua e identidades culturales en la narrativa contemporánea de Cataluña by Stewart King (2005), International Journal of Iberian Studies 20.1 (2007)
Other Things
- My photos
- alt.books.tom-holt Frequently Asked Questions (now defunct, retained for historical interest)
- Durham University Computing Society PGP Keysignings
- Sitemap for nick.frejol.org
Nicholas Boalch
(nick.boalch@gmail.com)Last updated: 14th June 2009 (v. 1.7)