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chasebejournal.bsky.social
Brief Encounters Journal
@chasebejournal.bsky.social
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Open-access, peer-reviewed journal for interdisciplinary research and creative contributions.

Contact us: [email protected]
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chasebejournal.bsky.social
From ‘A Saturday with No Sunday: The Struggle for Existence’ by Shams Mazen Rajab

In reflective prose, Shams describes the realities of living under siege.

Read now in the Special Issue: briefencounters-journal.co.uk/article/id/2...

#Gaza #Resilience #صمود #AlAqsa_University #فلسطين #Hope
A quote which reads: '‘The laughter of children playing in the alleyways, despite the shadows of conflict, is perhaps one of the most poignant manifestations of this collective spirit. Their innocent joy, nurtured and protected by the community, is a powerful symbol of resilience and a defiant affirmation of life in the face of adversity’. A photograph of the author and their biography which reads: 'Shams Mazen Rajab is in her final semester of a degree in English Language and Teaching Methods at Al-Aqsa University. She has a great passion for creative writing and translation. In July 2025, Shams volunteered with a French educational platform aimed at high school students in Gaza. She has also volunteered as a Conversation Leader in English Language Teaching and taught Arabic to foreign students.'
December 11, 2025 at 10:15 AM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
From ‘A White Stain in Endless Dark’ by Maha Muhammad Al-Farra

In a poem written from within the reality of war, Maha calls for justice & sends a message of resilience.

Read now in the Special Issue: doi.org/10.24134/BE....

#EducationMatters #Gaza #Resilience #صمود #AlAqsa_University #فلسطين
A quote which reads: 'Let this life be renewed – / not for power, / not for pride – / but for the children, / the elders, / and all who ask for a quiet simple joy.' A photograph of the author, accompanied by their biography which reads: 'Maha Muhammad Al-Farra is a 22-year-old student from Gaza City, currently in her fourth year of studying English Language and Literature at Al-Aqsa University. Poetry is her greatest passion. Maha writes in both Arabic and English and finds strength and healing through creative expression. She believes that art and literature can carry the truth in ways nothing else can.'
December 9, 2025 at 11:39 AM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
The first pieces for our issue on Pedagogical Resilience, Challenges and Adaptive Strategies, created by students & faculty of the English Department at Al-Aqsa University, are now live!

www.briefencounters-journal.co.uk/BE/issue/12/...

#EducationMatters #Gaza #Resilience #صمود #Palestine #فلسطين
Decorative.
December 6, 2025 at 7:34 AM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
“It is high time; I need to dance to the rhythm of the Dhol”.

From “‘Off Leisurely Confrontations’ – a Dhol Reconnaissance by Sehr Jalil and Roberto Prestia.

Watch the full piece now in Issue 9!

briefencounters-journal.co.uk/article/id/2...

#Kathak #ImperialWarMuseum #WWII #India #Dance
A quote which reads: “It is high time; I need to dance to the rhythm of the Dhol”.
December 4, 2025 at 6:54 AM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
From “Reading Borges in Edinburgh” by Eiji Yasuhara

Read the full piece now in Issue 9!

briefencounters-journal.co.uk/article/id/2...

#WorldLiterature #LatinAmerican #Japanese #Borges #Edinburgh
A quote which reads: “Nobody saw the beauty of the streets / Until when, frightening in clamour, / The verdant sky collapsed / In the fall of water and shadow”.
December 3, 2025 at 3:50 PM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
“‘Don’t you find human imagination fabulous?’ he asked her, gently jumping off the book in her hand”.

From “Lilliput” by Zizhu Wang

Read the full piece now in Issue 9!

briefencounters-journal.co.uk/article/id/2...

#Fiction #War #InternationalRelations #Realism
A quote which reads: “‘Don’t you find human imagination fabulous?’ he asked her, gently jumping off the book in her hand”.
November 30, 2025 at 2:35 PM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
From “Integrating Young Refugees and Asylum Seekers Through Theatre: A Case Study of Compass Collective” by Ellen Frances Wagstaff

Read the full piece now in Issue 9!

briefencounters-journal.co.uk/article/id/2...

#YouthTheatre #Refugee #Drama #Wellbeing #Solidarity
A quote which reads: “Solidarity is not just about the spaces we create; it is equally about the support we provide and the communities we build”.
November 29, 2025 at 12:26 PM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
From “The spiritual-artistic practice of Hilma’s Ghost: towards a theory of material solidarity” by Alex Bispham

Read the full piece now in Issue 9!

briefencounters-journal.co.uk/article/id/2...

#Spirituality #Materiality #ContemporaryPainting
A quote which reads: “Like the occult traces of a spiritual practice, and the hidden stories of forgotten artists and techniques, the intensely pigmented surfaces of the Automatic Theorem Paintings leave no trace of the medium that binds them”.
November 28, 2025 at 9:05 AM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
From “Solidarity and the Group Ego: a Psychosocial Exploration of Solidarity in Times of Crisis” by Daphne Kalogeropoulou

Read the full piece now in Issue 9!

briefencounters-journal.co.uk/article/id/2...

#Solidarity #Freud #Einstein #Psychology #Correspondence
A quote which reads: “The Einstein-Freud exchange remains marked by the very limitations it attempts to diagnose — detached from the material realities of violence and insulated by the privilege of its authors”.
November 25, 2025 at 6:50 PM
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From “‘Never Has There Been a Greater Need for Pooled Intelligence’: Maintaining International Solidarity in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 1939-1946” by Emily Chambers

Read the full piece in Issue 9!

briefencounters-journal.co.uk/article/id/2...

#Pacifism #WWII #Archive
A quote which reads: “The [Women’s International League’s] wartime pacifism, though privileged, remained active, politically significant, and historically important”.
November 24, 2025 at 4:28 PM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
From “Solidarity and ecological balance: global perspectives on revaluing eco-human kinship” by Marta Simonetti.

Read the full piece now in Issue 9:

briefencounters-journal.co.uk/article/id/2...

#EnvironmentalJustice #Sustainability #DeGrowth #Ubuntu #BuenVivir #Swaraj
A quote which reads: “Fostering the idea of ecological balance as a means for promoting environmental governance and rights paves the way towards alternative models that are truly pluralistic, value a variety of knowledge systems, and see all elements of life (material, social, and spiritual) as interconnected”.
November 23, 2025 at 9:53 AM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
From “Poet, friend and activist: Stanley Richardson and the Arden Society for Artists and Writers Exiled in England, 1938–40” by Harriet Truscott.

Read the full piece now in Issue 9!

briefencounters-journal.co.uk/article/id/2...

#Exile #SpanishCivilWar #LGBTQIA+ #Fascism #Resistance
A quote which reads: "Richardson believed that poetry was a social endeavour, one that brought people together, and that could speak for those who were misrepresented elsewhere".
November 22, 2025 at 6:57 PM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
An extract from “Jennifer C. Nash, How We Write Now: Living with Black Feminist Theory” by Foluke Taylor.

Read the full piece now in Issue 9!

briefencounters-journal.co.uk/article/id/2...

#Feminism #BlackFeminism #BlackStudies #Loss #Writing
A quote which reads: "As the routinisation of spectacular violence carries it ever closer—or even in—to the realm of the ordinary, I begin to wonder: Could there be such a thing as writing that is too beautiful? Could beauty become a valve through which a reader's affect—rapt in intrapsychic experience—is funnelled away from urgent realities of an antiBlack now?"
November 21, 2025 at 10:33 AM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
We are delighted to announce that Issue 9 of Brief Encounters is live! Visit the link to read the full issue: briefencounters-journal.co.uk/issue/9/info/

Image: A women's handicraft workshop supervisor in Sayeda Ayesha, Cairo. Photograph by Dr Maha Gaad, 2022.

#Solidarity #Published #Phd
A photo depicting the cover art of issue 9, by Maha Gaad, taken during fieldwork for her PhD in the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, which explores how women working in handicraft workshops in urban Egypt perceive, vernacularise and experience empowerment. Taken in the Sayeda Ayesha neighbourhood of Cairo, one of Egypt’s poorest “shanti towns”, the photograph was taken on a walk between the workshop and local neighbourhood association (gam’eya), which runs a nursery for women while at the workshop. The vibrancy of the image – shown partly by the neon colours painted onto the walls – hints at the possibilities created through these workshops: of sisterhood, collective solidarity and hope.
November 20, 2025 at 9:12 AM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
Dr Junina kindly shared the following introductory statement to accompany its publication. #IntellectualResistance #EducationAsResistance #VoicesFromGaza
An image depicting the following text: "This piece carries a deeply personal significance. I began drafting it during prolonged power outages and with little to no internet access. I vividly remember scribbling ideas on scraps of paper and typing notes on my phone, often under the echo of shelling and amidst unimaginable circumstances. Against all odds, the paper took shape, and today [16 July 2025], it’s finally out in the world. In this article, I document my lived experience teaching university courses and leading the English Department at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza during wartime, employing methods and strategies that overcame, as much as possible, the many challenges we faced. It also tells the stories of colleagues and students who, despite destruction and isolation, chose to resist, with their voices, their words, and their will to continue learning. An image depicting the following text, continued from the previous image, alongside a photograph of Ahmed Kamal Junina: That is why I titled the article: 'Displaced but not replaced: challenges, adaptations, and resilience of higher education in Gaza in the context of war and scholasticide.' The article offers a close look at the deliberate and ongoing destruction of Gaza’s higher education system. I wrote it with my colleagues and students in mind. These are the people who continue to teach and learn under bombardment, in classrooms reduced to rubble or scattered across displacement camps. This is for them. For all those who remind us, even in the darkest of times, that the pursuit of knowledge in Gaza endures and cannot be silenced.
September 6, 2025 at 8:59 PM
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Since then, they have been welcomed to an ongoing series of workshops as part of RECONNECT – an initative which strives to restore access to education for students in Gaza, founded and led by Dr Junina since March 2025.
#EducationUnderSiege
An image which collects a series of six posters from the workshop series hosted as part of RECONNECT.
September 2, 2025 at 8:30 PM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
On 12 April 2025, CHASE-affiliated members of the editorial team, George Clutterbuck and Millie Riddell, were kindly invited to convene with Dr Junina, and current and former members of Al-Aqsa University’s English faculty and student body, to formally announce the call for contributions.
An event poster depicting Ahmed Kamal Junina, George Clutterbuck and Millie Riddell.
September 2, 2025 at 8:30 PM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
We are honoured to have Dr Ahmed Kamal Junina, Head of the department and Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics, join us as guest senior editor. The special issue affirms the right to education and deepens understanding of how the academic community can respond to crisis.
#EducationAsResistance
A photograph depicting Dr Ahmed Kamal Junina
September 2, 2025 at 8:08 PM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
To amplify the voices of students & academics in Gaza, Brief Encounters is collaborating with the English department at Al-Aqsa University to produce a special issue centred on Pedagogical Resilience, Challenges and Adaptive Strategies.
#DecolonizeAcademia
A decorative image which repeats the special issue's theme and includes a graphic of both the globe and the Palestinian flag.
September 2, 2025 at 8:08 PM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
George Clutterbuck, Submissions Editor, is a PhD student at @sussexresearcher.bsky.social. Her research is about feminist approaches to the study of marginalised women’s artistry and focuses upon the work of Laura (Riding) Jackson, Eva Frankfurther and Anna Mendelssohn.
May 7, 2025 at 8:37 AM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
Introducing Anna Titov, Articles Section Editor! For her PhD at @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social, Anna's research looks at Nietzsche’s middle writings and the development of his notion of ‘overcoming’ as stemming from his depictions of our experiences of nature, particularly our embodied experiences.
April 2, 2025 at 3:15 PM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
Continuing our introductions to issue 9's team...!

Chris Bates, Review Section Editor, is PhD candidate at the University of Sussex. His research considers how the political economies of wood reveal, and are revealed in, the affective, aesthetic and formal investments of the early American novel.
March 27, 2025 at 8:11 AM
chasebejournal.bsky.social
Continuing our introductions to the editorial team of issue 9...!

Emily Gresham-Beamer, Creative Encounters Section Editor, is a PhD candidate at @goldsmithsuol.bsky.social. Her research investigates Lidar and photogrammetry image-modelings around contested forest spaces of the Global South.
March 17, 2025 at 2:48 PM
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While the publication of issue 9 is underway, we wanted to introduce you to this year’s editorial team!

Millie Riddell, Senior Editor, is a PhD candidate at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her research is about radical art practices in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 1970s.
March 12, 2025 at 8:25 AM
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The cover competition now OPEN!

Any artwork submitted should align with the theme of Solidarity & we welcome entires in multiple mediums including painting, printmaking, mixed media, photography & digital media.

Please send your entries to [email protected] by midnight on May 2nd 2025.
February 19, 2025 at 8:32 AM