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“The London Critical Theory Summer School has undeniably expanded my critical thinking skills and will undoubtedly prove to be an invaluable asset in my professional journey”

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Every year, the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities (BIH) runs the London Critical Theory Summer School (LCTSS). In this blog, participants from this and previous year’s Summer School share their experiences and its impact on their work and lives.   

What the participants said:  

Jessica Nogueira Varela – Phd Candidate, Cornell University, Ithaca, US / Central European University, Vienna, Austria; originally from Brazil 

Weeks have passed since the summer school ended, and I still cannot help but wish to live it all over again. I am confident that I benefitted from attending LCTSS from a professional, academic, and personal perspective, which is why I am incredibly grateful for the generous grant offered through the OSUN network, without which I wouldn’t have been able to attend at all. The whole thing was thought-provoking, with excellent lecturers and experts. Likewise, I was captivated by the generative and insightful exchanges the organizers allowed through tea breaks and small group discussions. 

I had the privilege of attending lectures with speakers I never dreamt of meeting in person, in addition to conversing with and learning from my peers. Each lecture was filled with questions relevant to our current context: we touched upon the psychological effects of war, the expanding borders of Fortress Europe and the imperial US into the global south, the long-durée of capitalist exploitation and the war on drugs, and the environmental catastrophe in relation to other catastrophes (military, technological). 

 We questioned what critical theory is, what its role should have, and what it can do in the world. By thinking through contemporary problems, we were invited to reconsider the role of the aesthetic within legal systems, the effects of archives, the humanitarian crises across the Global South Global North, and the challenges intersectional feminist solidarities pose to the current state of affairs.  

By having smaller group discussions with my peers about these issues, and many more, we learned from one another’s perceptions of the day while deeply considering ways to address the issues presented. Granted, we often left with more questions than answers, but I was touched by the entirety of the experience because of the interdisciplinarity embedded in the program and the expertise of the cohort.  

For example, through the practical and theoretical approaches brought by lecturers Sisonke Msimang and Kojo Koram, our group discussions ventured into the importance of historical contextualization vis-a-vis capitalist exploitation and anti-black racism. We were positioned to reconsider the very premise and design of our institutions, academic fields, and activism.  

Overall, I believe the summer school provided the attendees with some of the most useful theoretical and practical frameworks we could have had access to, while also giving us the space for our thoughts and feelings to autonomously grow as we listened to and learned from each other. I am aware of how much work there is to do, but I am also encouraged by how many of us understand critical theory as a theory and practice of transformation, enabling us to act in the world and fail better. 

 Israr Hasan – BRAC University James P. Grant School of Public Health, Bangladesh 

It was a fantastic opportunity to have been a recipient of the OSUN bursary. As someone who lives and works in the Global South, the bursary paved an opportune moment for me to meet with fellow students and learners from across the world and be acquainted with stellar intellectuals like Jacqueline Rose, Esther Leslie, Stephen Frosh, Slavoj Zizek, Eyal Weiszman and many others.  

Conversations with them had a healthy current of agreement and disagreement, which has strongly influenced my way of thinking about the world we live in and the multipolarity of crises that take place in the realm of nationalism, gender rights, violence, and justice.  

I am grateful for the gift of learning bestowed upon me by my fellow teachers and classmates, who have helped me navigate a new understanding of being attentive and observant of various problems plaguing our world. The debates and discussions were fruitful and emotionally charged yet civil in allowing us to express ourselves and come to terms with ideas that seemed “foreign” and “taboo” in our respective countries. In the end, the summer school has armed me with the know-how of various topics that I hope to integrate into my mode of thinking, translating into the broader scheme of action I will undertake. 

Yara Malka – American University of Beirut, Lebanon 

Receiving the OSUN bursary for the Birkbeck’s Critical Theory Summer School 2020 was a formative and life-changing experience for me in many ways. One of them was academic. With Dr. Jacqueline Rose, Dr. Elia Ntaousani and Dr. Esther Leslie spearheading a challenging and intense schedule, I felt I was privileged and lucky to be under their wing.  

Every day was a milestone, and the speakers exceeded my expectations. I learned more about my initial fields of interest, critical theory and psychoanalysis, straight from the academics who have always inspired me from afar. I do not know how to describe the feeling of meeting your academic idols and learning from them firsthand; it truly made me speechless. I was also exposed to new conceptual tools which I find myself using in my thesis now. This includes forensic architecture as a new theoretical foundation for my work.  

On a personal level, this opportunity is one which I could only dream of as a Lebanese citizen, so it was literally a dream come true. In only two weeks, I noticed a spike in my learning curve on both professional and personal levels. The exposure to great intellectuals from different parts of the world, be it the participants, speakers, or coordinators has been an exercise in building character. Thank you endlessly for this experience.  

A special thanks goes to the directors and staff for working so hard in an effort which I witnessed every second of this program without fail. I am grateful and I hope this opportunity will reach more academics from my country because the potential is endless, particularly if the conversation includes Lebanon.  

Mustafa Mayar, Bard College Berlin, Germany; originally from Afghanistan 

Ever since leaving Afghanistan due to the Taliban takeover of the country and studying in Germany, attending the London Critical Theory Summer School at Birkbeck has been one of the highlights of my academic life. This remarkable experience introduced me to scholars who delved into subjects and theories previously unfamiliar to me, leaving an indelible mark on my intellectual growth.  

One topic that stood out was forensic architecture and its significance in democratizing physical spaces. Listening to Eyal Weizman and Christina Varvia elucidate the ways digital tools unveil how current power systems perpetuate the subjugation of marginalized communities was genuinely captivating. Equally profound was Stephen Frosh’s seminar, where the firsthand accounts of Ukrainian teenagers detailing their experiences of war opened my eyes and stirred deep emotions. 

Joining the summer school with limited knowledge of critical theory’s application to real-world issues, I left with a profound shift in my approach to social justice and a renewed understanding of our role in effecting positive change. I now recognize the intricate interconnectedness of various social issues and the necessity of considering intersectionality when addressing them.  

Yet, beyond the academic voyage I embarked upon, the impact of connecting with fellow participants and immersing myself in their stories from different corners of the world was transformative. During a break, I engaged in conversation with a participant who seemed to be in their late twenties, and they shared their research topic for a Ph.D. with me. This encounter shattered my preconceived notions, as I had previously associated doctoral pursuits with seasoned professors in their fifties. It made me realize that age is not a barrier to achieving greatness within one’s academic field. This revelation instilled in me a sense of liberation, allowing me to recognize the immense potential within myself to make a meaningful impact and exceed the limits I had unknowingly placed upon my aspirations.  

Inspired by the London Critical Theory Summer School, I now embrace the true value of my potential, driven to achieve more in life and leave a positive imprint on those around me. 

Aigerim Azimova, Central European University, Austria; originally from Kyrgyzstan 

I am immensely grateful to have been selected as one of the recipients of the OSUN bursary, granting me the opportunity to participate in an exceptional and highly esteemed summer school in Critical Theory. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to the Birkbeck Institute of Humanities, particularly Co-directors Jacqueline Rose and Esther Leslie, as well as Manager Elia Ntaousani, for their exceptional organization and the wonderful spirit they fostered throughout the unforgettable two weeks. 

It is difficult to adequately articulate just how much I gained from this summer school experience. The London Critical Theory Summer School has undeniably expanded my critical thinking skills and will undoubtedly prove to be an invaluable asset in my professional journey. Coming from a legal background with a focus on human rights and criminal justice, I found the exploration of investigative aesthetics particularly captivating. Given my involvement in torture consideration cases during my past work experience and the inherent challenges of proving such claims, I see this field very compelling in the pursuit of justice. 

I extend my heartfelt gratitude to all the esteemed speakers who contributed to the event. Each of them left an indelible mark on my mind, provoking profound thoughts and reflections. Additionally, I am grateful for the opportunity to connect with a diverse and brilliant cohort of participants from across the globe. Engaging with like-minded individuals has truly broadened my horizons and enriched my perspective. 

No words can express the depth of my gratitude for this remarkable opportunity in my life. The OSUN bursary and the Critical Theory Summer School have had a marked impact on me, and I am honoured to have been a part of it. 

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“The London Critical Theory Summer School made me think differently”

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Every year, the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities (BIH) runs the London Critical Theory Summer School. In this blog, participants from this year’s Summer School and previous years, tell of their experiences and its impact on their work and lives.  

2022 participants

Thomas Gilloch Boyle, London School of Economics
I was very grateful to receive the OSUN bursary to attend the Critical Theory Summer School at Birkbeck. I was excited at the opportunity to listen to and interact with such highly respected academics both from Birkbeck, and the world. Coming from a university background in Politics and International Relations, I was especially looking forward to speakers with a highly political background but was also really grabbed by those working in other disciplines, such as psychoanalysis and social theory. It was a great privilege to learn in such a unique and special environment, allowing for the opportunity to develop academically and personally. The sessions were well-organised, thanks to Esther Leslie, Jacqueline Rose and all the other staff who worked so hard. This afforded the opportunity for students to speak as well as the academics. The sessions were varied, covering a diverse range of issues, contemporary challenges, and perspectives within the overarching sphere of critical theory. The summer school tackled immediate and pressing issues, on a more local and global scale, with the diverse backgrounds of participants meaning a broad variety of contexts and ideas were discussed. I really enjoyed and valued hearing from my peers and appreciated that there was ample opportunity for students at the school to engage. This was further emphasised by the diverse disciplines that the students at the school worked in, both within the academic sphere and outside of it. It was fascinating to hear people’s perspectives drawing on their own experiences and research. I leave the summer school with a longer reading list than I arrived with, and it was long enough already!

Rebeka Pushkar, Central European University
I am very grateful to have received an OSUN bursary to attend the 2022 London Critical Theory Summer School. Not only did I get to interact with thinkers that I have been reading and admiring for years, but I also met like-minded people from all over the world. It was truly inspiring to be surrounded by people who are asking the same types of questions as you, especially given the fact that critical theory is suppressed in many departments. The opportunity to collectively learn, share knowledge, ask questions, and debate reminded me that I am part of a community that transcends institutions and borders.

It was especially fascinating to learn about all the different types of organizing that people do across the globe. I appreciated that both the speakers and the participants were attentive to the dimension of praxis that could have been overlooked at a program focused on theory. Instead, people gave concrete examples, talked about their direct involvement in their communities, and insisted that we think about the material applications of every theory we were considering.
Jacqueline Rose and Esther Leslie were both very attentive throughout the two weeks. They maintained an openness to the participants’ specific interests while keeping the discussions structured and focused on the speakers’ lectures. Overall, I found myself reinvigorated by the Summer School in spite of (or, perhaps, due to) the fact that the discussions were intellectually challenging and my “to-read” list grew every day.

Lala Darchinova, Central European University
The London Critical Theory Summer School was a staggering event! Receiving a generous bursary from the Open Society University Network allowed me to become a part of this intellectually stimulating school.

Despite being prior familiar with critical theory and relevant literature, participation at the LCTSS shed a light on unexplored topics such as psychoanalysis and political aesthetics. Along with learning new perspectives, I truly enjoyed the debates and discussions around more familiar topics. Being in contact with top-tier professors engaged in critical theory such as Etienne Balibar, Slavoj Zizek, Jacqueline Rose, Esther Leslie, Achille Mbembe, Costas Douzinas, Jodi Dean and many others stimulated my thinking on many questions currently bothering me.
I also want to especially thank Jacqueline Rose and Esther Leslie for both organizing, and managing the school and at the same being amazing moderators and speakers. I enjoyed every discussion with them!

Along with organization, the content of the school was highly rich and timely. Amidst the war in Ukraine, overall global turbulence and the uncertainty when all values and principles are questioned again, topics of war, nationalism, cosmopolitics, the future of capitalism, the meanings of freedom and liberty were necessary to discuss and think about again.
Finally, the careful selection of participants with very strong and diverse backgrounds was another distinct feature of the LCTSS. Along with lectures, private conversations and informal discussions made the school even more valuable and enriching.

2021 participants 

Stacey Keizan, Wits University, South Africa
Stacey Keizan is a junior researcher investigating Developmental Psychology, Behavioural Science and Social Psychology at Wits University, and was a recipient of the Open Society University Network (OSUN) bursary in 2021. 

What a privilege it was to receive a generous bursary to attend the 2021 London Critical Theory Summer School. It was such an incredibly insightful and thought-provoking two weeks!   

Firstly, it was an absolute honour to get to listen to such highly acclaimed intellectuals, whose work continues to inspire and guide my own intellectual pursuits. Jacqueline Rose and Esther Leslie were fantastic facilitators of the lectures and discussions, all of which were so well organized. They encouraged questions and discussion among participants, while constantly elevating the conversation. The opportunity to engage with the speakers on such a personal level was amazing, and the way in which different perspectives were expressed and highlighted made the lectures and discussion extremely thought-provoking.   

The content was novel and diverse and went a long way towards expanding my reading and theoretical understanding of critical theory. I loved the way the speakers engaged with current topical issues on a global scale and made the theory come alive with practical examples and debate that facilitated critical thinking and lively discussion among participants.  A surprising highlight for me was the opportunity to hear such diverse and global perspectives from attendees. The group discussions were always so interesting, and I loved the multidisciplinary perspectives that attendees brought to these discussions, which often introduced me to new theory and stimulated my reading and interest in different avenues. Given that some of the lectures and readings were outside of my area of knowledge and understanding, I felt that the Summer School really stretched me.  

Golam Mostofa, BRAC, Bangladesh
Golam Mostofa was studying for a Bachelor of Pharmacy (BPharm) with Honours degree as a final year student when he enrolled on the Summer School. He wanted to expand his understanding of critical analysis and thinking in order to be effective in the critical analyzing and decision making of important issues, both personally and professionally. 

My learnings from the Summer School exceeded my expectations and I was quite amazed to learn many things from the professors and participants. I was always interested to learn more about critical theory but never got the chance to meet such great critical thinkers before. Living in a developing country limits many aspects of education. This program was the very first Summer School that I ever participated in and coming from a very small rural primary school to attend the Summer School was a great achievement for me. My parents were very proud. They’ve had very little education themselves, but they always encouraged me with every step. 

The Summer School added a new dimension to my thinking and life. It created a new path for me to start a great journey. It created a new feeling towards life, and I can feel the changes. I was so overwhelmed by the influence of the current time and media, and how it was blocking me from reality. Critical thinking makes me think differently and creates new perspectives.  

The two weeks of Summer School were very special for me. We discussed topics that were very rich, lively and thought-provoking; every word of the Summer School was important to me. I found a welcoming and warm place where I can converse with great critical thinkers and would love to attend every year. I really thank everyone for this great experience and am forever grateful.  

Blogs from participants in previous years 

Gustavo Matte
Gustavo Matte, a researcher, novelist, and community education volunteer in Brazil, received the Open Society Foundation Bursary in 2019.  

It was two intense and wonderful weeks… a real watershed in my intellectual life. Thanks to the Summer School, I returned to my home country, Brazil – which is facing several social and political problems – with new intellectual and affective resources to think about our current situation and resist, on a daily basis, the rise of all types of violence (racial, sexual, economical etc.).  

The Summer School was a wonderful place to meet people from all around the world and share knowledge, experiences and ideas that allowed us to help each other in several crucial matters; solving personal research problems, broadening cultural perception, and also sharing social traumatic experiences from different places and times experienced by the students in a way that could help us to figure out ways to overcome these crisis through the comparison of similarities and differences of each case. For example, what worked in South America that could also work in Asia? How can left-wing organizations of one country avoid making the same mistakes that weakened their counterparts in other countries in the world? Is it possible to put our local experiences together to see the greater picture?  

The Summer School was the perfect opportunity for me to ally intellectual growth, friendship and international solidarity (a network of mutual support) in order to resist fascism. The classes, professors, colleagues, together with the experience of being abroad, opened the world up to me and helped me realise that we still have places and situations where we can think broader and dream together. 

Nombuso Mathibela
Nombuso Mathibela, a 24-year-old South African and a self-described academic and activist, was the first recipient of the BIH International Bursary in 2018.  

When I first heard about the Summer School, I was intrigued by the idea of being part of a programme that would attempt to situate psychoanalysis as a set of theories, and that could assist us in dealing with social and political life. I come from a legal background and activist spaces that have offered different pathways and frameworks to the pursuit of radical social and economic change. I was grateful for the opportunity to be part of an intellectual space that has deepened my understanding of critical theory.  

Understanding that theory is borne out of comparison and struggle, I really enjoyed being part of a programme that made space for students coming from different parts of the world to theorise about their different yet similar systemic conditions. This school created a space to negotiate ideas, experiences and the historical formation of theories while provoking me to consider the present-past and engage different ways of being or becoming and unbecoming. Laura Mulvey’s sessions on female voices and cinema were enchanting, challenging multiple assumptions about women’s histories and feminist imaginations.  

Moreover, the invited scholars challenged us, adding much vigour to my intellectual and political life. Similarly exciting was the selection of students from different backgrounds, disciplines and research interests. Our class was quite special, and I was able to develop transnational relationships of unquantifiable importance. I am aware of many activist scholars and students who have shown an interest in the Summer School for both its content and the calibre of intellectuals who are invited to participate. I look forward to returning to this space. 

Further information 

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The story behind Birkbeck’s new web design

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Dr Ben Winyard, Senior Content Manager at Birkbeck explains the research and process behind our website’s new look. 

The Birkbeck website serves many vital functions simultaneously: it must be an authoritative, accurate source of information; a gateway to services; easy to navigate and search; aesthetically pleasing; accessible to all; and it must reflect and advance Birkbeck’s mission. The experience of using our website is often absolutely central to a person’s decision to come and study in the evening with us.

In our digital age, having a professional, beautifully designed and practical, easy to use website is absolutely essential for any university or organisation. Users need to get where they want to be quickly and easily, feeling confident that what they’re reading is accurate, while enjoying the tactile and visual experience of moving through our site.

The Birkbeck Digital project is a hugely ambitious, wide-ranging and on-going project to redesign, redevelop, restructure and re-present Birkbeck’s web presence based on research, evidence and over 50 user-testing sessions. Every longstanding website – and Birkbeck has been online for around twenty years – has a natural history of expansion and growth. The ambition of this project has allowed us to research and reconsider everything about our site – the design, the layout, the navigation and the content – and the opportunity to field staff and student feedback to ascertain how people use, and feel about, our website.

The project has been divided into stages, as the Birkbeck website extends to many thousands of pages. Stage 1, which is being delivering on schedule this month, includes the redesign of the Birkbeck homepage, of our ‘corporate’ site, which includes all of the key information for prospective students and covers many of our most important professional and student services departments, and, lastly, the online prospectus, which includes over 3000 pages of course and module information across all levels of study, from short courses to PhD research.

Our first task was to organise user feedback sessions, to help us map and improve the experience of visitors to the website. A series of workshops, one-to-one interviews and group sessions, were bisected by ‘type’ of user, from ‘young undergraduate’ and ‘mature postgraduate’ to international students, MPhil/PhD researchers and staff from across the College.  From this research we were able to compile a rich analysis of who is using the Birkbeck website, what they are looking for, and what delights and frustrates them. This invaluable feedback has informed every step of the design process, the reviewing and refreshing of content and the build of the new website.

The feedback was often interestingly divided according to the age of the student: in general, users above the age of 30 were positive, describing our website as ‘modern’, ‘clear’, ‘precise’, ‘professional’ and ‘mature’; while younger users were less positive, describing our website as ‘traditional’, ‘outdated’, ‘plain’, ‘dull’ and lacking colour and media content such as videos. Many users expressed frustration with the navigation on our site – the menus, signposts and links that you click on to move from one page or section of the website to another – and felt we don’t adequately convey what it is like to study at Birkbeck. Users also struggled to access vital information, including bursaries and financial support.

Embedded accessibility software, including screen-reading, enables visitors to customise our site in the way they need it to work

Embedded accessibility software, including screen-reading, enables visitors to customise our site in the way they need it to work

The task of converting all of this, sometimes conflicting, feedback into a new design fell to the design company, Pentagram, who created our new visual identity last year so had a head start in understanding Birkbeck’s unique mission and our diverse staff and student community. Over the course of many brainstorming sessions and meetings in the autumn of 2016, Birkbeck’s content (External Relations) and technical (IT Services) experts worked together with Pentagram to translate our new visual identity and user feedback into a stylish, clear and colourful new design.

The mammoth task of translating Pentagram’s beautiful designs into a functioning website fell to our hugely talented and hardworking CIS & Web Team in IT Services. This type of translation work – of turning a design into functioning code on a webpage – will always involve cutting your coat to match your cloth – i.e. working out what can be done given the challenges of schedule, staff capacity and budget. The developers were astute at breaking down each element of the design and explaining the best way of turning them into a digital reality. Extensive user-testing was carried out in the team as well as research to makes sure our site is sector-leading in terms of accessibility. This sort of cross-team working carries its own challenges, but IT Services and External Relations have worked strongly and successfully together.

The new pop-out menu

The new pop-out menu signposts visitors to important pages

This new design has adapted our visual identity for the Web, incorporating new typography and standards of layout. On the redesigned Homepage, we now have the images, clear, graphic signposts to important pages that users have asked for, brought together on a new, easy-to-use pop-out menu on the right-hand side of the page.

 

Finding a course is usually the number one task of a new visitor to our site, so we have incorporated a prominent keyword course search box at the top of the Homepage, to get students started on their journey as quickly and easily as possible. We’re also showcasing the best of what’s happening at Birkbeck – as a lot of user feedback articulated a sense that Birkbeck is ‘hiding its light under a bushel’ and not trumpeting its achievements and strengths. So we are featuring news, events, blog posts and podcasts on the Homepage and on landing pages, singing loudly and proudly about our world-class research.

research-tile

Birkbeck’s unique qualities are showcased with eye-catching statement tiles

Birkbeck’s unique mission makes us genuinely different to other universities and the new website is all about making this clear upfront, celebrating it and helping prospective students see the many ways in which studying with us could have a real impact on their lives. We are also making videos more prominent, as a way of telling our unique story and dusting away some of the fustiness that frustrated our younger users. Finally, the new website has been designed responsively, meaning that, whatever device you are using, the website will look great and be easy to use.

newwebsite6phone

The website is optimised for browsing on any device

On our online prospectus, we are presenting each course page as a gateway into Birkbeck, as many prospective students come to our website through our course pages after a Google search. Thus, we now include links to important information on fees and funding, making an application, entry requirements, accommodation, our research culture and other key areas of interest for prospective students, depending on the level of study. We have also reviewed the content on all of our course pages, stripping out duplication and generic content and simplifying, consolidating and improving.

Redesigning and restructuring the website gave us a golden opportunity to review, assess and edit our content. The pages on our ‘corporate’ website include absolutely crucial information on fees and funding, student services, careers and employability, and research, while our online prospectus is the most visited area of our website and absolutely central to attracting new students.

Like most organisations, Birkbeck has seen its website expand exponentially over the past decade and, as with any large, complex organisation, content on our website has not always been kept up-to-date or focused on the needs of users. Seizing this opportunity, we have reviewed and refreshed over 1500 items of content, which includes webpages, images and files, in line with the newly created House Style and tone of voice guidelines – the first time Birkbeck has ever had a comprehensive style guide.

Duplicate and obsolete material has been removed, written content has been reviewed, rewritten where necessary, and adjusted to meet our House Style. User testing and workshop sessions with content owners across the College mean that we have been able to reorder material based on user needs, giving prominence to the material that matters most to visitors and giving answers to their most pressing questions. Areas of the website that had been structured to reflect the internal organisation of Birkbeck have been reordered to bring users’ needs, questions and tasks to the forefront. Thirty new landing pages have been created, giving essential content areas a fresh, vibrant new look that also makes the website easier to navigate.

Throughout this process, when considering the design, layout, structure and content of the website, we have been guided by the following ideas and principles:

  1. To focus on and prioritise the needs of the website users, whether staff, students or visitors.
  2. To simplify, clarify and reduce, while avoiding duplication, obfuscation and verbiage. Our written content should be truthful, clear, concise and easy to understand.
  3. To ensure our site is accessible to all users and optimised to enable disabled, blind and visually impaired users to access the information they need.
  4. To increase the aesthetic appeal of the website, particularly through the greater use of images, videos and other media. To this end, nearly 600 new images have been uploaded to the site.
  5. To simplify the structure of our website, to enable ease of navigation and quick access to the information that users need.
  6. Apply our new House Style and deploy a more consistent, positive and appealing tone of voice.

And this is just the beginning. Going forward, we will be redesigning and relaunching other parts of our website, utilising new technologies, implementing new principles of digital governance, rolling out our new House Style and tone of voice guidelines, and working towards the shared goal of a website we can all feel justly proud of.

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User-testing Birkbeck’s new website design

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Naomi Bain, Web Officer (Training and User Experience), at Birkbeck explains the way student feedback informed our new web design. 

webOver the course of the past few months, throughout the redevelopment of the Birkbeck website, I have carried out more than 50 user testing sessions. These have sought to ensure that the changes and improvements we are making to the website are firmly rooted in research and evidence about how the website is used in real life, rather than how we might imagine it is used.

After each round of testing I reported back to the web teams, both technical and content, about any issues that came out of the sessions. These reports led to some changes being made, helped with decision-making processes and provided reassurance.

There have been four rounds of testing with students, gathered with the help of Team Birkbeck. As well as this, I set up sessions with students with dyslexia and related conditions and students with visual impairment, who I contacted with the help of the Disability Office and External Relations. The students who have participated are studying all kinds of subjects and come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Testing has included a number of older students, and students who do not speak English as a first language.

In the early stages of testing we just looked at PDFs of the new design. Students were asked for their response to the appearance of the site, and I did ‘first click’ tests to assess their understanding of the layout of the pages and how they would find something on a live version. We then moved on to testing some mock up stand-alone pages, concentrating in particular on testing the course finder and the menu.

For the final round, we had something approaching a complete test version of the new site, and focussed in particular on course information. In addition to this, students with disabilities assessed various accessibility tools, and also talked about how their disability could affect their use of websites.

All sessions took place at Birkbeck and were recorded using Panopto, the university’s video content system. All students used the site on a PC, and some also searched the site on their phone.

Feedback on the new site has been overwhelmingly positive. People described it as “clear”, “modern”, “colourful” and “engaging”. It compared favourably to both the existing Birkbeck site and to other university sites.

Observing students carrying out searches on the site enables us to quickly see whether they understand how the design “works”. Several minor issues with the design have been brought to light as a result of these user testing sessions and changes have been made, or potential problems flagged up.

The intention is to do some follow up testing post-launch, as part of an ongoing iterative process of development and improvement, which will ensure that Birkbeck sites are attractive, usable and accessible to all our students.

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Take a virtual tour of our campuses

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Explore our beautiful Bloomsbury campus in the heart of London and state-of-the-art Stratford campus in east London.

Both campuses offer all the facilities you need, which all Birkbeck students are entitled to use. They are also well-served by public transport, making it easy to get to and from the College.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaPFiJSYLiI

 

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Why do we feel different when switching languages?

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This post was contributed by Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele of Birkbeck’s Department of Applied Linguistics and Communication

Jean-Marc Dewaele

Jean-Marc Dewaele

Few topics elicit as many passionate discussions among multilinguals as the question whether a switch of language includes a switch in personality. Some, like Ilan Stavans, the Mexican-American author of Jewish origin, feel that every language they speak allow them to be a different person and are proud of their hybrid multilingual self:

Changing languages is like imposing another role on oneself, like being someone else temporarily. My English-language persona is the one that superimposes itself on all previous others. In it are the seeds of Yiddish and Hebrew, but mostly Spanish…But is the person really the same?…You know, sometimes I have the feeling I’m not one but two, three, four people. Is there an original person? An essence? I’m not altogether sure, for without language I am nobody. (Stavans, 2001: 251).

Is this feeling of difference when switching from one language to another just a myth? What proportion of multilinguals experience this difference? Is this linked to anything particular in the person’s background?

John McWhorter, a great American applied linguist, made a relatively off-the-cuff comment towards the end of his 2014 book The language hoax, attributing the fact that many multilinguals feel different in their different languages to the fact that they started learning the foreign language (LX) later in life and that a lack of proficiency in the LX limits their ability to express their full emotional and pragmatic range. While this explanation sounds perfectly plausible, McWhorter provides no evidence, nor any references to back it up.

Reading McWhorter’s assertions, I wondered whether he was right. Do multilinguals really feel different when switching to a language acquired later in life? Is it because they may still retain a foreign accent, or not be as fluent as the native speakers? I did not like the attribution of difference to a sense of deficit. François Grosjean and Vivian Cook have argued convincingly that it is wrong to see a multilingual functioning in an LX as a failed native speaker of that language. LX users (myself included in English) are legitimate users of the language.

A couple of years ago, I collected a large database on communicating emotions from multilinguals around the world with my friend Professor Aneta Pavlenko. It included an open question: ‘Do you feel like a different person sometimes when you use your different languages?’ which was coded according to the degree of agreement with the question.

A total of 1005 bi- and multilinguals provided feedback. This seemed like a perfect database, and opportunity, to test McWhorter’s hypothesis. An analysis of the distribution of the answers showed that close to half of the participants had answered with an unqualified “yes!” to the question, over a quarter had said “no!”, with the remaining participants having a more nuanced answer.

It turned out that feelings of difference were unrelated to age of onset of acquisition and levels of oral proficiency. In other words, participants who had started learning the LX later, and were not highly proficient in it, did not feel more or less different than those who had started earlier and felt more proficient.

A comparison of those who started learning the LX early (between birth and age 2) and late (after age 2) showed no difference in feelings of difference. Context of acquisition of the LX, the degree of multilingualism and gender were also unrelated to feelings of difference.

However, more highly educated, and older participants reported higher levels of feelings of difference. Foreign language anxiety was also positively linked with feelings of difference: those who felt more anxious in their L2 and L3 were more likely to feel different when switching to these languages. Feelings of difference seem directly or indirectly linked to personality traits (Ożańska-Ponikwia, 2013; Wilson, 2013).

Participants’ reported that their own self-perceptions did not necessarily match those of people around them. Perceptions were often presented as being dynamic, varying over time and differing between switches to specific languages.

Participants mentioned variation in both verbal and non-verbal behaviour: feeling less funny in the LX because of lack of vocabulary, being more taciturn in one language, raising voice pitch, covering the mouth, avoiding looking interlocutors in the eye, adopting a different body language, sticking to linguistic or cultural norms of the L1 to stand out in the L2 or vice versa. Some participants reported possessing different persona in their different languages.

The debate on the causes of these intriguing differences is likely to continue forever.

Find out more

References

Dewaele, J.-M. 2015. Why do so many bi- and multilinguals feel different when switching languages? International Journal of Multilingualism,http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2015.1040406

McWhorter, J. H. 2014. The Language Hoax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ożańska-Ponikwia, K. 2013. Emotions from a Bilingual Point of View: Personality and Emotional Intelligence in Relation to Perception and Expression of Emotions in the L1 and L2. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Stavans, I. 2001. On Borrowed Words. A Memoir of Language. New York: Penguin. Wilson, R. J. 2013. Another language is another soul. Language and Intercultural Communication, DOI: 10.1080/14708477.2013.804534

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Who can control the post-superpower capitalist world order?

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This post was written by Slavoj Žižek, Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. It was originally published on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site.

To know a society is not only to know its explicit rules. One must also know how to apply them: when to use them, when to violate them, when to turn down a choice that is offered, and when we are effectively obliged to do something but have to pretend we are doing it as a free choice. Consider the paradox, for instance, of offers-meant-to-be-refused. When I am invited to a restaurant by a rich uncle, we both know he will cover the bill, but I nonetheless have to lightly insist we share it – imagine my surprise if my uncle were simply to say: “OK, then, you pay it!”

There was a similar problem during the chaotic post-Soviet years of Yeltsin’s rule in Russia. Although the legal rules were known, and were largely the same as under the Soviet Union, the complex network of implicit, unwritten rules, which sustained the entire social edifice, disintegrated. In the Soviet Union, if you wanted better hospital treatment, say, or a new apartment, if you had a complaint against the authorities, were summoned to court or wanted your child to be accepted at a top school, you knew the implicit rules. You understood whom to address or bribe, and what you could or couldn’t do. After the collapse of Soviet power, one of the most frustrating aspects of daily life for ordinary people was that these unwritten rules became seriously blurred. People simply did not know how to react, how to relate to explicit legal regulations, what could be ignored, and where bribery worked. (One of the functions of organised crime was to provide a kind of ersatz legality. If you owned a small business and a customer owed you money, you turned to your mafia protector, who dealt with the problem, since the state legal system was inefficient.) The stabilisation of society under the Putin reign is largely because of the newly established transparency of these unwritten rules. Now, once again, people mostly understand the complex cobweb of social interactions.

In international politics, we have not yet reached this stage. Back in the 1990s, a silent pact regulated the relationship between the great western powers and Russia. Western states treated Russia as a great power on the condition that Russia didn’t act as one. But what if the person to whom the offer-to-be-rejected is made actually accepts it? What if Russia starts to act as a great power? A situation like this is properly catastrophic, threatening the entire existing fabric of relations – as happened five years ago in Georgia. Tired of only being treated as a superpower, Russia actually acted as one.

How did it come to this? The “American century” is over, and we have entered a period in which multiple centres of global capitalism have been forming. In the US, Europe, China and maybe Latin America, too, capitalist systems have developed with specific twists: the US stands for neoliberal capitalism, Europe for what remains of the welfare state, China for authoritarian capitalism, Latin America for populist capitalism. After the attempt by the US to impose itself as the sole superpower – the universal policeman – failed, there is now the need to establish the rules of interaction between these local centres as regards their conflicting interests.

This is why our times are potentially more dangerous than they may appear. During the cold war, the rules of international behaviour were clear, guaranteed by the Mad-ness – mutually assured destruction – of the superpowers. When the Soviet Union violated these unwritten rules by invading Afghanistan, it paid dearly for this infringement. The war in Afghanistan was the beginning of its end. Today, the old and new superpowers are testing each other, trying to impose their own version of global rules, experimenting with them through proxies – which are, of course, other, small nations and states.

Karl Popper once praised the scientific testing of hypotheses, saying that, in this way, we allow our hypotheses to die instead of us. In today’s testing, small nations get hurt and wounded instead of the big ones – first Georgia, now Ukraine. Although the official arguments are highly moral, revolving around human rights and freedoms, the nature of the game is clear. The events in Ukraine seem something like the crisis in Georgia, part two – the next stage of a geopolitical struggle for control in a nonregulated, multicentred world.

It is definitely time to teach the superpowers, old and new, some manners, but who will do it? Obviously, only a transnational entity can manage it – more than 200 years ago, Immanuel Kant saw the need for a transnational legal order grounded in the rise of the global society. In his project for perpetual peace, he wrote: “Since the narrower or wider community of the peoples of the earth has developed so far that a violation of rights in one place is felt throughout the world, the idea of a law of world citizenship is no high-flown or exaggerated notion.”

This, however, brings us to what is arguably the “principal contradiction” of the new world order (if we may use this old Maoist term): the impossibility of creating a global political order that would correspond to the global capitalist economy.

What if, for structural reasons, and not only due to empirical limitations, there cannot be a worldwide democracy or a representative world government? What if the global market economy cannot be directly organised as a global liberal democracy with worldwide elections?

Today, in our era of globalisation, we are paying the price for this “principal contradiction.” In politics, age-old fixations, and particular, substantial ethnic, religious and cultural identities, have returned with a vengeance. Our predicament today is defined by this tension: the global free circulation of commodities is accompanied by growing separations in the social sphere. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of the global market, new walls have begun emerging everywhere, separating peoples and their cultures. Perhaps the very survival of humanity depends on resolving this tension.

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YouTube justice UK style

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This post was contributed by Professor Leslie Moran, of Birkbeck’s School of Law and Barbara Villez, Visiting Fellow at Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Professor Université Paris 8

The UK Supreme Court has launched a new communications initiative.  As of late January 2013 you can watch, on demand, videos of judges in the highest court in the land delivering summaries of their judgments. Who is the audience for these five minute programmes? Is it the hard pressed smart phone/iPad generation law student, lawyer or legal advisor? No; far from it.  The Court’s press release announcing the launch of the YouTube initiative suggests the target audience is much wider. Lord Neuberger, President of the Supreme Court, is quoted expressing his hope that the videos will broaden the audience for the Court’s work. Are they the next hot internet viral sensation educating the public about the work of the highest court in the land? The short answer is ‘no way’. Are these videos a ‘must watch’ offering valuable insights into the decisions of the court? We have our doubts about that too. But they do make fascinating viewing.

The visual challenge of judicial activity

Judicial activity has been described as ‘visually challenging’. These videos do much to confirm this and do little to meet that challenge. Five minutes watching someone with their head down reading out loud from a set of papers is not great telly by any stretch of the imagination. The way the images are put together adds to this static quality, with each video being made up of two basic types of shot. Throughout, the camera’s presence is unacknowledged by the speaking figure.

There is little in the way of props or costume to attract the eye. Judges in the UK Supreme Court don’t wear special robes in court. These judges look very much like ordinary business men. There is only one female judge, Lady Hale. In contrast to this there is much to distract the ear. The microphones, built into the judicial bench, not only pick up the voice of the judge but also the endless rustle of their papers.  Coughing and other background noises regularly punctuate the proceedings. All tend to obscure the words spoken by the judge.

Adaptation from written texts

What are you going to get out of watching the highest judges in the land reading out loud? The judges, so they tell us in the videos, are ‘giving the judgement of the Court’.  But law students and other diligent viewers beware; ‘giving the judgement of the Court’ is not the actual opinion of the court. What you actually get is an image of a judge delivering a speech adapted from a press summary published on the Court’s website to accompany the judgement itself. Written initially by the judicial assistants, the judges approve these summaries and then adapt them for the ‘live’ presentation in Court. The judgment is a written text. And it is written to be read, not spoken. It is available on the Court’s website, as is the accompanying press summary.

As the videos show, the adaptation of the press summaries into scripts for a courtroom performance is problematic. Despite the rearrangements, these scripts are not easy to speak. Judges stumble over the dense text and struggle to incorporate quotations from the trial judge into oral delivery.

The videos do, however, have much to offer. You not only hear the voice of the judge but also the accent which is a marker of their social class. The folding and refolding hands of a courtroom assistant on screen behind the talking head of the judge add an unexpected physical ‘commentary’.

Television trivia?

But are many of these points indicative of the dangers of putting courts and judges on TV? Are we in danger of getting caught up in what some describe as the trivia of the moving image? Our first response is that image making and image management are central to judicial authority. As the 2008 Judicial Studies Board, Framework of Judicial Abilities and Qualities reiterates time and time again, all the core judicial abilities and skills have to be ‘demonstrated’ and communication is central to this demonstration of authority. The courtroom is one long established context in which these abilities and skills have been performed and communicated. Props, wardrobe, voice and the body all have a role to play in demonstrating and communicating judicial abilities and qualities. Video is a new communication format, context and set of challenges. It has characteristics similar to and different from both face to face courtroom encounters and the more formal and enduring qualities of the text of a written judgment.

The current YouTube videos are a return to primitive television. They are simply the result of the presence of the camera in the court. The camera appears to be no more than a tool that records an event. However as the simple editing shows, the record is subject to a degree of manipulation. The resulting image is not just mediated by the technology but has been subject to judicial control. If essential information about the judgement, the press summary and the full judgement are already available what extra is provided by these judicially approved moving images? It may well be just that there is a camera in court and that camera is a symbol of openness, transparency and a form of accountability.

But is that going to satisfy a public that lives in a culture saturated with sophisticated video imagery.  One problem with them may well be that the public is too sophisticated for primitive television. Viewers have expectations acquired from countless hours of watching complex moving images, generating high levels of visual literacy. The primitive visual aesthetics of the UK Supreme court’s YouTube videos are likely to be a real turn off. If the judges of the UK Supreme Court are going to use video available via the Internet as a means of communicating, then they may have to think harder about the moving image that it is being made and adopt a different approach to the use of the moving image as a means of communication.

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