Dr Alix Beeston receives Learned Society of Wales Award for humanities and creative arts

Reader in Literature and Visual Culture Dr Alix Beeston has been awarded the Learned Society of Wales's Dillwyn Medal for her contribution to the humanities and creative arts.

The Dillwyn Medals celebrate outstanding early career researchers working in or with a connection to Wales. The annual awards are designed to fulfil the Society’s strategic objective of celebrating and raising the profile of Welsh scholarship across disciplines.

Dr Beeston was recognised by the Society for her all-round achievement as a researcher, teacher, public communicator, and colleague. The Society commended her for her achievements in advancing interdisciplinary and feminist approaches to literature, film, and photography in the 20th and 21st centuries, notably through her two scholarly books, In and Out of Sight: Modernist Writing and the Photographic Unseen (Oxford University Press) and Incomplete: The Feminist Possibilities of the Unfinished Film (University of California Press). The latter, a co-edited volume which brought together 14 film scholars and practitioners from across the world, was awarded Best Edited Collection by the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies earlier this year.

The Medal also honoured Dr Beeston’s commitment to reaching diverse audiences with her research. Across her career at Cardiff University, Dr Beeston has actively experimented with new forms of scholarly writing and dissemination, including through the Instagram project Object Women. As a founding convenor of the research platform Image Works: Research and Practice in Visual Culture, she has also contributed to the arts culture of Cardiff and South Wales through public programming at institutions such as National Museum Cardiff – Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd and Chapter Arts Centre, including the major film festival Unfinished: Women Filmmakers in Process in 2022.

Dr Beeston was nominated for the Medal by her colleague in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Professor Holly Furneaux.

Professor Furneaux, a leading expert in Victorian literature and culture, highlighted Dr Beeston’s driving ethos of collaboration and collegiality at Cardiff University and beyond:

“The award is a fitting recognition of Alix’s rare ability to shift research agendas and to lead the development of inclusive and rigorous research cultures! It’s wonderful to see a colleague who cares so deeply about fostering creativity communities in our university and region recognised in this way.”

Dr Alix Beeston received the specially struck commemorative Dillwyn Medal as part of her prize at the Learned Society of Wales event at the Senedd on 13 November 2024. Upon receiving the award, Dr Beeston reflected:

“Winning this Medal seven years after I immigrated from Australia to Wales to take up an academic job at Cardiff University is humbling and affirming for me. At a time when the arts and humanities are often underappreciated and under-resourced – and when immigration is demonised, despite all the good that migrants do for Wales – the Society’s recognition of my contribution to my new home nation feels very significant.

“I’m grateful to Professor Furneaux for nominating me and for being such a wonderful mentor, role model, and friend. I’m also grateful to my colleagues and students in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy for their support and kindness, and to the academics, artists, and arts professionals with whom I’ve collaborated over the years.”