name: Dr Mark Leahy
email: mark.leahy@plymouth.ac.uk
mobile: +44 (0)7793564738
website: www.markleahy.net
Qualifications
PGCHE (Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education), University College Falmouth; (completed August 2009)
PhD on contemporary American poetry at the School of English, University of Leeds; (completed December 1999, conferred July 2000)
MA by Research in Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at Department of English, University College Dublin; (first class honours, 1994)
BA in English (Mode 1); (first class honours, 1993) University College Dublin
NCEA Diploma in Fine Art – Sculpture; (pass with distinction, 1986) Limerick School of Art and Design
Experience of Teaching in Higher Education
Associate Lecturer; Department of Fine Art, Plymouth University; October 2014 – the present
Associate Lecturer; Department of English and Creative Writing , Plymouth University; October 2016 – 2023
Associate Lecturer; School of Writing and Journalism, Falmouth University; October 2011 – June 2016
Associate Lecturer; Academy of Music and Theatre Arts, Falmouth University; October 2010 – June 2015
PhD and MPhil supervision; Falmouth University; October 2007 – the present
MA Programme Leader; Dartington Campus, University College Falmouth; October 2007 – September 2010
Director of Writing; Dartington College of Arts; September 2005 – October 2007
Lecturer in Writing; Dartington College of Arts; October 2003 – October 2007
Visiting Lecturer; Department of Visual Media and Culture, University of Middlesex; September 2001 – May 2004
Seminar Tutor; Department of English, University College Dublin; October 1994 – June 1996
Curriculum Development Expertise
Development and revision of modules in Writing for Performance, Creative and Critical Writing Practices, and Poetry for Performance and Publication; Falmouth University (2012 – 2015)
Developing Modules for Minor Award in Textual Practices; Developing content for BA (Hons) Writing modules; Participation in Taught MA Programme Review process. Dartington College of Arts, Totnes, Devon (2006 -2010)
Module design and development of Writing for Art and Design Students; Department of Visual Media and Culture, University of Middlesex (2003-2004)
Research Supervision and Examining
Current PhD Supervision
Director of Studies on PhD project: Drew Turner (UAL regs Falmouth University); Between Grief, Memory and Home: an oscillating process of narrative illustration combining 2D and 3D methods.
Completed Supervision
Second Supervisor on PhD project: Veronica Fazzio (Plymouth University / Transart); Social Sculpture: A Plastic Process of Mutual Transformation
Second Supervisor: Paul Reynolds (UAL regs. Falmouth University); A Practice-Based Inquiry into a Taxonomy and Ontology of Holes in Devoré-Lace.
Second Supervisor: Steven A. Evans (Plymouth University / Transart) Creative Caprice: States of Consciousness, Intrinsic Interest, Emotion and Practice-based Phenomenological Inquiry.
Second Supervisor: Katrina Brown (UAL regs. Falmouth University) Intersect / Surface / Body: A Choreographics of Drawing
Second Supervisor: Annabel Banks (UAL regs. Falmouth, submitted 2015); Poetry and the Boulton and Watt Archive: History, Story, Community
Third Supervisor on PhD by Mark Greenwood (Kingston University; submitted 2012); The body considered as a site of writing, resistant to the advance of cultural commodification.
Director of Studies on PhD by Camilla Nelson (University College Falmouth / UAL; submitted 2012); Writing with a Tree: Practising Nature Writing as Enquiry
Second Supervisor on MPhil by David Sullivan (University College Falmouth / University of Plymouth; submitted 2011); The Visible Invisible Object: A Photographic Enquiry ‘Recording’ a Lived Life
Second Supervisor on PhD by Larry Lynch (Dartington College of Arts / University of Plymouth; submitted 2009); The Difficult Impossible: Writing, Performance and the Subject
Third Supervisor on PhD by David Evans (Dartington College of Arts / University of Plymouth; submitted 2007)
Reading neuroscience : ventriloquism as a metaphor for multiple readings of self
Third Supervisor on PhD by Anya Lewin (Dartington College of Arts / University of Plymouth; submitted 2006)
Performing a practice: narrative – translation – live installation – urban intervention
Examination
2023 Internal Examiner on PhD (Falmouth University)
2019 – Internal Examiner on PhD (Falmouth University)
2017 – Internal Examiner on PhD (Falmouth University)
2017 – External Examiner on PhD (Birkbeck, University of London)
2016 – External Examiner on MPhil (Aberystwyth, University of Wales)
2016 – External Examiner on PhD (De Montfort University)
2016 – External Examiner on PhD (Central St Martin’s UAL)
2014 – External Examiner on PhD (De Montfort University)
2012 – External Examiner on PhD by Publication (Roehampton University)
2008 – Internal Examiner on MPhil / PhD submission (University of Plymouth)
I have also been Chair on 6 PhD examinations under UAL Regulations at Falmouth University.
External Examinerships and other Professional Appointments
Reviewer for DRHA (Digital Research in Humanities and Arts); 2009, 2010 and 2011
External Examiner; MA Creative and Professional Writing; Roehampton University, 2005/06 to 2008 /09
External Examiner; Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media; De Montfort University, 2006/07 to 2010/11
Selected Critical Publications
‘Contextualising “his voice”: Disrupted Utterance in a Digital Material Interface.’ Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures no. 20, 2019. doi:10.20415/hyp/020.int01
‘Receiving Queerly Displaced Utterance: Failure and / as Response in Works by Glenn Ligon and LOW PROFILE’, in Geoff Cox et al., editors, ‘Artistic Research Will Eat Itself. Proceedings of the 9th SAR International Conference on Artistic Research‘, Research Catalogue (2018) pp 340-349, https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/512748/512749/0/0
‘Disrupting the Market in Echoes: Voice, body and technology in poetry and performance by Hannah Weiner and Holly Pester’, Performance Research, 23:2, pp. 75-81, June 2018 DOI: 10.1080/13528165.2018.1464761
‘apologies for blanks or laments for dumbness: Tina Darragh’s Opposable Dumbs as open source and/or open content’, C21 Literature: journal of 21st-century writings, 4(1), p.4. (2016) DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/c21.4
‘An Action Movie (for NW): reading time code action’, afterword for Action Score Generator by Nathan Walker, ifpthenq Books, February 2014
“it is the act and not the object of perception that matters”: MacGreevy’s poetry in relation to perception in literary and visual arts, in The Life and Work of Thomas MacGreevy: A Critical Reappraisal, Susan Schreibman, ed., Bloomsbury Academic, June 2013
‘Hand in Glove – sinister hand vested sable lozengy couped’ in Open Letter, 14th series, no. 8; ‘Negotiating the Social Bond of Poetics’ (guest-edited by Nancy Gillespie and Peter Jaeger), (Spring 2012), pp 74-82, ISSN 0048-1939
‘“I might have been a painter”: John James and the Relation between Visual and Verbal Arts’, The Salt Companion to John James, Simon Perrill ed., Salt Books, March 2010
‘glossing Speakers, or bookmaking for amateurs’, Journal of Writing in Creative Practice 2:1, pp. 55-67, June 2009
‘Private Public Reading: Readers in Digital Literature Installation’, A Companion to Digital Literary Studies, Susan Schreibman and Ray Siemens eds., Oxford: Blackwell, 2007, pp 301-317, ISBN 1405148640
‘Ground’, Performance Research 11.3 ‘Lexicon’, June 2007, pp 64-65, ISSN 1352-8165
‘what is it here now I can persuade you of? scraps towards a rhetoric of poetry performance’, Frackija: Performing Arts Magazine no. 37/38 ‘Rhetoric’, Autumn 2005 / Winter 2006, pp 48-57, ISSN 1331 – 0100
‘plantation and thicket: a double (sight) reading of Sir Thomas Browne’s ‘Garden of Cyrus’’, Performance Research Vol.10, No.2 ‘On Form’, June 2005, pp 111 – 121, ISSN 1469 – 9990
‘Tina Darragh: Performing the Familiar Sentence’, published in the online journal How2; Spring 2004, www.departments.bucknell.edu/stadler_center/how2/current/in_conference/leahy.shtm
“We tongue it with our eyes”: making, reading and seeing verbal-visual artworks’ in Verbal inter Visual, exhibition catalogue, Central St Martins College of Art and Design, London, April 2001
‘Repetition, rereading, recognition in the poetry of Bruce Andrews’ in The Mechanics of the Mirage: Post-War American Poetry, University of Liége, Belgium, May 2000
Selected Other Publications
At Sounds Like: 3 Projects, if p then q books, Manchester, 2021
‘Yesterday’s Not Here’ in Love Bites: Fiction inspired by Pete Shelley and Buzzcocks, edited by Andrew Gallix, Tomoé Hill and C. D. Rose, Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2019, pp. 99-100
‘What did he do with his pipe?’ in The Graveside Orations of Carl Einstein, edited by Dale Holmes and Sharon Kivland, Ma Bibliotheque, 2019, pp 87-90
‘A Curiosity of Nothings: on the Not-there-ness of Andrew Kearney’s Sculptural Installations’, Sculptorvox Vol. 1, January 2018
‘Subject to Gesture’, Dock Road Press, Liverpool, April 2017
‘12 quartets’ from his many voice(s) in The Other Room Anthology 8, April 2016
‘mise en abyme’, a contribution to international online art project Telephone, April 2015
‘Hello, This is a Test!’, a contribution to ‘The Opticon – A Newspaper on Privacy and Surveillance’. Part of Torque #2 – The Act of Reading, Tate Liverpool, February 2015
‘anamorphic trace: sensing doubleness in image and event’, in What Remains And Is To Come: A Document, Katrina Brown and Rosanna Irvine, July 2014
’3 or 4 Things I Know About Them’, in Here’s to another 10, ICIA, University of Bath, April 2013, pp 51-56
‘lengths and ends: six poems for Penzance’, presentation and publication as outcome of CAZ Weekender Residency, Penlee Bowling Club, Penzance, October 2012
‘With Particular Attention: Martha Winter’s material occurrences’, for Market Project, Cambridge, May 2012
‘Excerpt from Pursuing Pursuit (I am bound to follow) with Jack, John, Rock and Hard ([1987], 2012)’, for ‘The ties that bind …’, exhibition and installation by Steven Paige, Exeter Phoenix, published by Library of Independent Exchange, January 2012
“and the little magnetic atoms turn and set themselves in orderly lines”; in ‘odes’, Freaklung (nineerrors poetry zine), unpaginated; June 2010;
‘“Where stone is dark under froth”: Screening the datastream’, catalogue text for Katy Connor’s Pure Flow, Phoenix Arts Centre, Exeter and Permanent Books, December 2009
‘swatches: a sequence’, Acts of Language, Dartington, December 2009
‘Guaranteed Insurance’; text to accompany online animation project by Mocksim; September 2009; also published in tiktoc 6, ISSN 2040-0012, unpaginated; Summer 2010
‘(e)vac(u)ated spaces: a digression on some terms’, exhibition text for Teresa Grimaldi, The Vacated Works, Quay Arts, Isle of Wight, May 2009
‘things and stuff, or, how do you know what you’re looking at?, mamagazine, pp. 4-5, Bonfire Books and Dartington College of Arts, Sept 2008
‘a(n) (always provisional partial) glossary of/for dissemination’, POST Journal, No. 3, pp 98-99, University College Falmouth, June 2008
‘triple cased content: Wonder’, collaboration with Teresa Grimaldi, Performance Research 11.2 ‘Indexes’, September 2006, pp 39-42, ISSN 1352-8165
Curating and Project Management Work
convenor of panel on ‘Art & Writing’ for Parallels/Encounters: Art, Words and their Meetings, part of Synesthesia II, Cultivator, Cornwall; June 2022
mentor for the VAP Platform project for Plymouth Art Weekender 2018, funded by Horizon Project Plymouth and Arts Council England, January – October 2018
organising committee member for In Other Tongues: creating metaphysics, embodying language, art.earth, Dartington Hall, June 2017
organising committee member for Language Landscape and the Sublime, art.earth and Schumacher College, June 2016
project manager for Liminal on Organ of Corti (PRSF New Music Award); UK tour to five sites and festivals; February – August 2011
creative producer of MA Platform in Art, Performance and Writing; Dartington Campus, University College Falmouth; September 2007; September 2008; September 2009; July 2010.
curator of exhibition ‘Public Pages’ as part of conference Poetry and Public Language 2007 at School of English, University of Plymouth (April 2007)
curator with Deborah Price of the exhibition Performance Writing 1994-2004; Exeter Phoenix Galleries, April 29 – May 16 2004; the Gallery, Dartington College of Arts, May 24-30 2004; Fine Arts Gallery, George Mason University, November 10 – 18 2004
tour manager on Bobby Baker’s Box Story, and project manager for Artsadmin on Bobby Baker’s Box Story at LIFT’01, London and UK; May 2001 – August 2003
organiser and administrator on Verbal inter Visual for Gresham College, London; and joint curator on the accompanying exhibition with Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design; April 2000 – May 2001
Recent Performances and Exhibitions
‘twiceness’, devised performance with Shelley Hodgson, Mayfest, University of Plymouth, May 2024
‘cream of the crop’, performance, SOAK Live Art, Leadworks, Plymouth, January 2024
‘capes, folds, drapes’, performance and reading developed in collaboration with William Luz, presented for First Thursday, Minerva Café, Plymouth, February 2023
‘revised dictionary supplement’, solo performance with audio and improvised movement; commissioned by The Arts Institute, University of Plymouth; first performed 15th February 2022; AMATA, Falmouth University, June 2022
‘material + transition’, performance developed in collaboration with Rosanna Irvine, presented as part of Breath Pieces, Tramway, Glasgow, June 2018
‘threaded insert’, presented as part of Tears in Rain for Plymouth Art Weekender 2017 at Plymouth Athenaeum, September 2017
‘Subject to Gesture’, collaborative project with Bejamin D. Duvall; presented at Gramphone Ray Gun 6, Everyman Bistro, Liverpool, April 2017
‘his voice’, presented at The Other Room, Manchester, February 2016
‘his voice’, performance commissioned for Counter Plymouth Art Book Fair, Karst, Plymouth, October 2015; and as part of Surface / Contact at Studio 74, Phoenix, Exeter, December 2015
‘flat-head self-tapping’, part of Care & Attend, curated by Joanne Lee and Emma Cocker, Chelsea School of Art, London, April 2015
‘answering machine’, performance commissioned for Experimentica 14 festival; Chapter Arts, Cardiff, November 2014
‘Hello! This is a test’, performance as part of ‘the rhythm of fragments’, Salon de Textes Edition 2, Penzance, April 2014
‘muster page habit 2’, commissioned for EVP by Mercy and Penned in the Margins, presented as part of EVP on Tour, at Cube, Bristol, 19th May 2013, and as part of textually Active, at Plymouth Athenaeum, 28th May 2013
‘muster page habit: flat-head self-tapping’; presented as part of ‘Plinths’ at PW12 weekend; Arnolfini, Bristol; 5th May 2012
‘hand in glove: sinister hand vested sable lozengy couped’; presented at Tempting Failure (curated by Thomas J Bacon), ]performance space[, London; 4th March 2012
‘Voice Recognition: A Play after Gertrude Stein, William Shakespeare and Rolf Harris’; presented as part of Electronic Voice Phenomena, at the Bluecoat Liverpool; October 16th 2011, and at BLOP (Bristol Live Open Platform), Arnolfini, Bristol; 25th February 2012
‘what remains and is to come’; a collaboration with choreographers Katrina Brown and Rosanna Irvine; Harberton Parish Hall, Devon; 16th December 2011
‘after Durer after Mantegna’; Window Work project, DxDx Studios, Regent Street, Plymouth, 3rd — 17th August 2011.
‘figure and ground: Plymouth’, two-day durational performance as part of Performance Market, The Pigs of Today are the Hams of Tomorrow, Plymouth Arts Centre, 22nd – 23rd January 2010.
Selected Conference Papers Presented
‘receiving queerly displaced utterance: failure and/as response in works by Glenn Ligon and LOW PROFILE’ at Artistic Research Will Eat Itself, the 9th SAR International Conference on Artistic Research, University of Plymouth, April 2018
‘Contextualising ‘his voice’: Queering Utterance in a Digital Material Interface’, poster presentation at the 2nd Congress Performing Arts in Education: collectivity, thought and experience, University of Patras, Greece, March 2018
‘his voice’, DataAche, DRHA2017, Plymouth University, September 2017
‘Voice Recognition: a Play’ presented at Listening to Literature: a one-day symposium on soundscapes, University of Exeter, July 2017
‘‘his voice’: live voicing a Twitter intervention’, Other Codes / Cóid Eile: Digital Literatures in Context, NUI Galway, May 2017
‘his voice’, Language Game[s]: Poetry, Logic and Artificial Language, Chelsea College of Arts, May 2017
‘after alert catchers: a report on an other (than) worded event’, Beyond Words: Privileging the Unspoken in Arts and Communities in a Posthuman World, Plymouth University, March 2017
‘ “A Miracle can you Speak I am Electronic”: Technology and the Voicing Body in Poetry by Holly Pester and Hannah Weiner’, Thinking and Feeling in Contemporary Poetry, Plymouth University, June 2016
‘Thomas MacGreevy’s poetry in relation to perception in literary and visual arts’, Writing into Art, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, June 2013
‘pursuing pursuit (I am bound to follow): Steven Paige’s remaking of a personal archive’, Performing Documents, University of Bristol, April 2013
‘apologies for blanks or laments for dumbness: Tina Darragh’s Opposable Dumbs as open source and / or open content’, Contemporary Poetry and Source, University of Plymouth, May 2012
‘glossing Speakers: bookmaking for amateurs (strikethrough)’, Writing Encounters, York St John University, York, September 2008
‘instructions and databases’, presented as part of ‘e and eye’ series, Tate Modern, London, November 2006
Residencies and Workshops Facilitated or Participated In
Considering Time, joint-lead (with Marilyn Arsem) on a week-long residential workshop and performances at Live Art Ireland, June 2024
grass residency, (three-week residential research period), Live Art Ireland, Millford House, Tipperary, October 2023
MarjonXRame Summer School, a weekend performance practice and pedagogy residency, Rame Projects, Maker, Cornwall, July 2022
‘what time is art?’, a 2-part online workshop commissioned for the PITCH series by CAMP (Contemporary Art Membership Plymouth), August 2020
‘Enter Text’ (month-long funded residency on a theme of art / text / performance) Arteles Creative Centre, Finland, November 2018
‘Telling Time’, a Communal Making session at Jamboree 2018, Dartington, Devon, June 2018.
‘Redefining Print’ (year-long funded residency and Exeter Portfolio print commission ‘extending the language of contemporary print’), Double Elephant Print Workshop, Exeter, November 2014 to November 2015
‘The Overlooked Specimen: Toward a Herbarium for Schumacher College’ with botanist Richard Lewis; Language Landscape and the Sublime, Schumacher College, June 2016
voice workshop with Ella Finer, Performance Fields, York St John University, September 2014
group workshop and presentation at A Voice & Something Else, Aberystwyth University, January 2014
Syntax: workshops on Processing (Coding for Writers), FACT, Liverpool, June 2012
IETM (Independent European Theatre Movement), Ljubljana, May 2009
writing workshop for adults, Geekfest, Branksome Dene, Bournemouth, May 2008
Transliteracy workshop, IOCT, De Montfort University, Leicester, January 2008
Peer Reviewing
I have reviewed essays for Textual Practice, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training and for Literary and Linguistic Computing
I occasionally publish reviews online at a-n.co.uk and at Stride magazine.
Research Interests and Activities
Research interests include relations between writing, performance and visual arts; questions of voice, gesture and communication; issues around genre in visual and textual production and consumption; theoretical investigations of reading and speaking; digital and electronic literature; and contemporary poetry in English. Research activities include a continuing practice in writing and performance, critical and theoretical writing on voice and performance, and curation of related exhibitions and events.
Board Positions and other Memberships
I was a founding director of art.earth (artdotearth.org) – 2016 to 2021, am Chair of the Board of Trustees of Take A Part CIO (takeapart.org.uk) and a board member of Soundart Radio (soundartradio.org.uk), and am co-director of CAMP (Contemporary Arts Membership Platform) (www.camp-membership.org).