Interview with Judith

Judith first came to Exeter to study English and Film at the University. She also lived in London and Cambridge before moving to Devon in 2014 after completing her Doctorate in Vienna. She was born and grew up in Villach, Austria, a town on the border between Italy and Slovenia. She speaks German, English and is currently on an Italian course taught by Valentina Todino. Drawn to music from a young age, it was the pop scene that initially attracted her to England as an 18-year-old. During her PhD, Judith studied opera and theatre at the Music and Arts University in Vienna. After her studies, she participated in several theatre internships and worked her way up from the small roles to stage manager and worked at the Cambridge Handel Opera from 2011 to 2013. Since then, Judith has worked at a high school in Tiverton where she is responsible for administrative work and teaching. After three years she started working for the Tourist Information Centre in Exeter, working with, for example, the Underground Passages. More recently Judith has been involved in a project with St. Nicholas Priory, where she manages the partnerships and programmes. As a memory object, Judith brought a replica of a prehistoric duck (Fig. 1). This was purchased at a geohistorical excavation site in Frög, near Villach. As well as having an interest in replicas from prehistoric times, Judith explained that the object connects her with the history of Europe and explained that being able to have a symbolic item which represents human settlement is exciting. For her, the object summarises the European story perfectly. It does not represent a “socially constructed” (Diener & Hagen , 2012, p. 17) divide between nations, but instead serves as a symbol of movement between valleys across the continent, without the constraints of borders.