Jade Cuttle announced as a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker 2024
Many congratulations to OOC DTP student Jade Cuttle, who has been announced as one of this year's New Generation Thinkers, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the BBC, for her work on 'Scriptocurrency: The New Language of British Nature Poets of Colour'.
Every year, a nationwide search is held for the best new arts and humanities academics with ideas that will resonate with a wider audience on BBC radio. From hundreds of applications, these ten New Generation Thinkers represent some of the best early career researchers in the country. They will be given the opportunity to share their pioneering research with BBC Radio 4 listeners, as well as being provided with unique access to training and support from AHRC and the BBC.
The 2024 New Generation Thinkers will bring new insights into diverse topics, with research including the possible existence of the multiverse, the surprisingly dark history of Technicolor film, and the search for the greatest philosopher who never existed.
The names of the ten researchers were announced as part of a New Thinking episode of the Arts & Ideas podcast hosted by former New Generation Thinker Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough.
Professor Christopher Smith, AHRC Executive Chair says:
“The New Generation Thinkers programme brings interesting, important ideas into the public consciousness, shaping thought and discussion.
“From fundamental questions about the nature of reality to how political propagandists harnessed the seductive power of Technicolor, and the impact of imprisonment on mothers and children, and the most challenging problems of our day, these are ideas of thrilling originality and importance.
These ten brilliant, original thinkers demonstrate the ability of the arts and humanities to help us to better understand both ourselves and the world around us
Matthew Dodd, Commissioning Editor, Arts, BBC Radio 3 and 4, “We’re looking forward to working with ten of the most promising early-career academics. Each year the New Generation Thinker scheme brings radio production teams a wave of stimulating and thought-provoking contributors who have a passion for public engagement. After over a decade of successful partnership with BBC Radio 3, it’s great to be bringing their ideas to a new home of listeners on BBC Radio 4, the biggest speech radio station in the UK, where they’ll find a wide audience.”
Jade notes:
“I'm delighted to be named a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker 2024 for my AHRC-funded research into nature poetry, and excited to start muddying BBC airwaves with my 'worms-eye view’. Applying my passion for metal detecting and mudlarking to the field of literature, I'll be investigating this genre from the ground up - digging between the ‘dancing daffodils’ to unearth evidence of an overlooked tradition. This includes listening to the poets of colour whose books have represented until 2008 less than 1% of all published poetry in Britain. I'm interested in rethinking poetry as a trade of ideas and coinings as intellectual currency, or ‘scriptocurrency’ as I call it. As a nature writer myself, currently writing a book called Silthood - a term I coined to trace ancient connections between soil and self - I have a personal investment in this subject. I think the NGT scheme is a fantastic opportunity to bring academic research to a wider audience that as a former Arts Commissioning Editor at The Times I really admire. It’s the reason I founded StorySphere, a consulting agency for creative minds, so I’m pleased to see a passion for public engagement have a place in academia today.”
Jade Cuttle is an award-winning writer who began her career writing for the Guardian, the Observer and foreign news reporting, before working at The Times as an Arts Commissioning Editor. Jade commissioned and wrote a range of arts features, interviews and reviews, winning a ‘30 To Watch: Journalism Award’ for her work. She continues to write as a freelance journalist while completing AHRC-funded research at Cambridge. Supervised by Robert Macfarlane, her research provides first scholarship on the work of British nature poets of colour ahead of the publication of Britain’s landmark anthology Nature Matters: New Poetries by Black and Asian Writers of the diaspora. Jade’s theories on the geology of language have been broadcast on Radio 3, along with her album Algal Bloom, with televised appearances across BBC One, ITV and Look North. Her first book of nature writing Silthood is forthcoming. She’s a Ledbury Critic, a program funded by the AHRC EDI Fellowship to diversify poetry criticism, and has taught at the Universities of Sheffield, Arts Bournemouth and Poetry School. She gained a First in Modern and Medieval Languages at Literature, Homerton College, Cambridge, before completing her Masters in Creative Writing to Distinction at UEA. In her spare time, she is a professional historical reenactor, one of Britain's first female warriors of colour. www.jadecuttle.co.uk @JadeCuttle.
