This is a very important and special episode of the podcast, in which Fadi Zmorrod, the recipient of the SEVN (South East Venue Network) bursary joins Jenny in studio to talk about his work with Doulab Circus and Dance. When Fadi was younger, he left the oppressive environment of occupied Palestine and went to study computing in the United States. Yet his heart was simply not in it: he was drawn back to the arts and to his home, where he met his Irish wife, Juliet, and where Doulab Circus and Dance was born. Across Palestine, Fadi and Juliet us ..read more

As policies on EDI are rolled out in higher education institutes, increased efforts are being made to diversify and decolonise a wide range of curricula across the sector. With thanks to SATLE funding (Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement) from the National Forum, Dr Ebun Joseph joined us at SETU for two seminars (one with students and another with staff) on understanding racial diversity and talking about race in the classroom. In this episode of the podcast, Jenny chatted to Ebun about her educational journey, setting up the Institute of Antiracism and Black Studies, and ..read more

This episode sees us welcome our very first spoken word poet to the podcast! Caoimhe Weakliam joined us to chat about the power of spoken word poetry after a talk with English students that was funded by the Strategic Alignment for Teaching and Learning Enhancement initiative from the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. In the past year, Caoimhe has performed as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival and Culture Night and has delivered two sets at Electric Picnic. She has also worked as a youth worker and creative practitioner, and her main aim is to cr ..read more

This episode sees us welcome our very first spoken word poet to the podcast! Caoimhe Weakliam joined us to chat about the power of spoken word poetry after a talk with English students that was funded by the Strategic Alignment for Teaching and Learning Enhancement initiative from the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. In the past year, Caoimhe has performed as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival and Culture Night and has delivered two sets at Electric Picnic. She has also worked as a youth worker and creative practitioner, and her main aim is to cr ..read more

This first episode of 2024 for The Nerve features Daniel Mulhall, former Irish ambassador to the United Kingdom and the United States, who recently received an honorary doctorate from SETU. Born and raised in Waterford, Daniel’s diplomacy work has taken him all over the world, and in the podcast, he highlights how literature has played an important role in his job. He also discusses the process of writing a book on Ulysses during the pandemic, his various academic roles at NYU, Cambridge and Harvard, and his latest book Pilgrim Soul: WB Yeats and the Ireland of his time ..read more

Ho, ho, ho, and happy Christmas! In this festive episode of the podcast, Jenny is joined by Aoife Hearne, dietician and lecturer in the Department of Health Sciences (and previous contributor to TV’s Operation Transformation), Dr John McNamara who lectures in Social Care, Social Science, and Sociology in the Departments of Social Care and Early Childhood, and the Department of Arts, and Dr David Scanlon, lecturer in Biology & Biopharmaceutical Science. Their Christmas recommendations range from books about the social change instigated by the printing press, the science behin ..read more

Joining Dr Jenny O’Connor in studio for this episode is the award-winning Canadian author Alexander MacLeod. A Professor of Creative Writing at St Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Alexander has been published in the prestigious New Yorker and Granta magazines and has won the Atlantic Book Award, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the O.Henry Award. His first collection Light Lifting was published in 2010 and his latest, Animal Person, was released in 2022. Both collections explore the fragile connections that define us, the colli ..read more

In this first episode of a new season of the podcast, Dr Jenny O’Connor is joined by Pete Windle, the Head of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning at SETU, and Dr Kate McCarthy, researcher and lecturer in Theatre Studies to discuss the way generative artificial intelligence (GenAI, e.g. Chat GPT) has affected the teaching of subjects that traditionally relied on the essay (or other text-based methods) for assessing students. The discussion includes philosophical questions about teaching and learning but also the challenge posed by large student groups and how AI can teach us how to thin ..read more

Andy Kelly is a nationally recognised archivist and collector of photography and film in Waterford and in this episode, he discusses the collection he has amassed, his time as a projectionist and filmmaker, and the innovative methods he employed when faced with technical challenges over the years (like building cranes and setting fire to a specially built thatched cottage for a movie set piece!). Frank Ryan is a long-time member of Waterford Film For All and recalls the venues, films and audiences that have sustained the film society over the years. The conversation leads to memories of Waterf ..read more

In this final episode of the podcast for this academic year, Jenny is joined by poet, scholar, harper and Arts curator, Emily Cullen. Emily is currently the Poet in Residence in the University of Limerick and combines that role with poetry writing as well as curating literature and poetry events. On foot of Poetry Day Ireland, Emily talks about the importance of poetry in Irish life, her “scenic” route to where she is now, and teaching as a mutually enriching experience for students and teachers alike. She also reads and discusses a poem from her collection, Conditional Perfect (2019). Show no ..read more