Twin prizes for Arts & Humanities academics

Two members of the Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Dr Erika Balsom (Film Studies) and Dr Shaul Tor (Philosophy & Classics), have been awarded prestigious Philip Leverhulme prizes. These prizes, each worth £100,000, are awarded annually to a select number of UK academics across the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences "to help realise their personal vision in research and professional training". A distinctive aspect of these awards is that they are made "in the responsive mode" - given on the strength of past research and with the choice of future topics/areas of study left entirely up to the recipient. As such, they are highly sought-after within UK academia, and the selection process is highly competitive. "This is great news and a tremendous achievement," said Dr Johanna Malt , the Faculty's Interim Executive Dean. I send [Dr Balsom & Dr Tor] my heartiest congratulations!" Dr Balsom's fields of study are cinema and visual culture - especially experimental/artistic filmmaking, documentary filmmaking and digital culture. Her research has focused on the relationship between cinema and visual art, both on the 'changing role of the moving image in contemporary art', and on the histories of distribution/circulation in film and video art.