Birkbeck Graduate Research School (BGRS) invites you to enter a Postgraduate Research Student Poster Competition, which will be held on campus alongside the 3 Minute Thesis Competition on Thursday 25 May from 6pm.
This Poster Competition is open to all doctoral researchers at Birkbeck and provides an excellent opportunity for you to present your research, practice your communication skills, to network with other doctoral researchers and to celebrate your work.
Prizes
The winner of the first prize will receive £150 and a certificate
Two runners up will be awarded certificates and £75 each
Poster requirements
You should create a research poster that explains complex research to a mixed audience of non-subject specialists.
Your poster should be formatted for printing as A0 in size and in portrait orientation.
What is involved?
Your poster will be displayed on a poster board, with an in-person judging session during a reception after the 3 Minute Thesis Competition.
You will be invited to attend your poster during the judging session and so that attendees can speak with you about your research.
In order to be printed (we will pay for your entry to be printed) you will need to send your completed poster as a .pdf to graduateresearchschool@bbk.ac.uk no later than midday Monday 22 May.
Training available
For all those taking part in the competition we are organising a workshop to help you produce your poster.
Regardless of whether you are planning to enter the 3 Minute Thesis Competition or enter this BGRS Poster Competition please do mark 6pm Thursday 25 May in your diaries for these exciting events.
Photo: 2022 Gwynne-Vaughan medal winners at the end of the BGRS Winter Party. From left to right: Dr Gurbachan Singh Jandu, Kate Errington, Dr Linda Miller. Dr Melissa Buron was unable to attend but provided a statement of thanks that was read out on her behalf.
Monday 19 December 2022
On Monday 19 December we welcomed doctoral researchers to the BGRS Winter Party. The event was a chance to enjoy some festive celebration and also to announce the winners of the 2022 Gwynne-Vaughan Medal competition. The medal is named after Birkbeck’s first female Professor, Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan, and is awarded to Birkbeck Doctoral students able to demonstrate the most notable contribution to their field while undertaking their research degree.
This year the medal was awarded in two categories: Current Research Students; and Doctoral Alumni. In both categories the achievements were completed while enrolled as a doctoral student.
Professor Julian Swann (Pro Vice Chancellor of Research and Director of the Birkbeck Graduate Research School) welcomed all those present and announced the following winners for the competition this year:
Current Student category
Winner: Dr Linda Miller (Department of English, Theatre and Creative Writing, School of Arts)
Highly commended: Kate Errington (Department of English, Theatre and Creative Writing, School of Arts)
Doctoral Alumni category
Winner: Dr Melissa Buron (Department of History of Art, School of Arts)
Highly commended: Dr Gurbachan Singh Jandu (Department of Politics, SSHP)
All are awarded a certificate and the winners in each category will be sent a medal and a £250 prize.
Congratulations to the winners this year and many thanks for all those who entered the competition. We look forward to opening a call for entries to the 2023 Gwynne-Vaughan competition next year.
Registration is now open for the 2022 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition, which will take place on Thursday 16 June from 6pm. You can register to attend this exciting event here
Birkbeck 3MT: Thursday 16 June 2022
Join a selection of Birkbeck PhD students as they compete to communicate their compelling thesis topics in just three minutes. This event has provided some outstanding opportunities to share and celebrate the interests and successes of PhD researchers from across the College and we will invite all current Birkbeck PhD students to take part. The winner of the Birkbeck competition will be chosen by an expert panel of judges who will award:
£500 to the overall winner
£250 to the runner up
The audience will also have their say by picking a people’s choice winner who’ll win a special prize.
All potential competitors for the Birkbeck Three Minute Thesis Competition will be invited to attend training sessions which will prepare them and will provide useful skills beyond the competition.
This is an international event and the Birkbeck winner will have the opportunity to continue on to the UK semi-finals later in the year.
Registration
Registration is open in 2022 and you can find details of how to attend the competition here.
Untold Arts, in collaboration with the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies (CILAVS), at the School of Arts at Birkbeck, University of London, would like to invite you to two workshops on interpreting diverse hidden histories for the stage and screen.
Untold Arts, founded by Actor/Producer Nadia Nadif and Historian/Writer Lauren Johnston, brings true unknown stories to life, championing global majority and female characters through the creative arts, educational resources and outreach workshops.
The first workshop aims to provide you with insights into the process of how the Untold Arts team translates hidden histories into theatre and film and introduce you to our latest project, about an Arab woman privy to some of the Tudor royals’ greatest secrets. This will include talks and discussions with the creative team (from the UK & USA) including:
6.00pm: Introduction – Professor Luciana Martins
6.05pm: The Catalina Project – Nadia Nadif (Actress and Producer)
6.35pm: The World of Catalina – Professor Carmen Fracchia
6.55pm: How the history has informed our process as film makers – Fawaz Al-Matrouk (Director), Leah Curtis (Music Composer)
7.45pm: Preparing Workshop 2 – Nadia Nadif
Workshop 2
Tuesday, 28 September 2021, 6pm-8pm, venue tba
The second workshop will involve interactive activities from guest facilitator Frances Marshall from HistoryRiot who aims to connect people with the UK’s past, to inspire audiences to feel a fresh sense of identity with the place in which they live and the historical sites they visit. These activities will allow you to explore your own diverse histories and how to present them through the creative arts.
Postgraduate students are especially welcome
Carmen Fracchia Professor of Hispanic Art History Co-Director of the Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies-CILAVS School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London
PhD researchers at Birkbeck working on the history of the college are organising a major conference to mark the institution’s 200th anniversary.
Useful Knowledge, to be held at Birkbeck in February 2022 (ahead of the College’s bicentenary in 2023), will feature talks by leading historians and critics including Sir Richard Evans, Sally Alexander, Jerry White and Marai Larasi.
The conference, being organised by Professor Joanna Bourke’s ‘Birkbeck Knowledge‘ research group, is set to focus on the long history of the college, but also on the past, present and future of part-time and mature higher education more broadly.
Further information will be made available shortly and information about the Call for Papers is available below.
Call for papers
Birkbeck Knowledge’s PhD researchers Jonny Matfin and Ciarán O’Donohue have also launched a Call for Papers (CfP), aimed at all academics with an interest in the history of part-time and mature higher education.
“We’re aiming to include as wide a range of academics as possible, to discuss what we believe is a vitally important area of university history.”
Jonny and Ciarán
Deadline for the Call for Papers: 5pm, Thursday 30 September
The Essay Film Festival returns 25 March to 3 April for its 2021 edition, which this year will be held entirely online. The Essay Film Festival is supported by AHRC funded CHASE Doctoral Training Partnership.
How will the festival work online?
All the films will be free and open to anyone in the UK. To watch
the films, visit our online screening room, where you will be able to view all
the films at a time that suits you. The screening room does not require any
sign-ups or downloads. While most of this material will be made available for
the entire festival window (25 March to 3 April), one or two items will be up
for a more limited period, so you should check the window of availability for
each film.
What about live events?
Our programme of live events – open to audiences globally –
includes artists’ and curators’ talks, conversations with filmmakers and
discussions with critics and researchers. These will take place online, via a
platform called Collaborate, which is very simple to use. Book your place on
our website (http://www.essayfilmfestival.com),
and we will send you a link to join us on the day: again, you do not need to
create an account or download any software.
What is in the
programme this year?
For us the
essay film is a critical intervention in the world, combining a passion for investigating
reality and for asking tough questions about society with an open, inventive
and even playful approach to film language and forms of representation.
This year’s
programme reflects that dynamic ambition for the essay film, with a wide range
of contemporary and archival works from different parts of the world,
accompanied by live talks and conversations featuring artists and researchers.
Madeleine
Hunt-Ehrlich will
give a talk about her forthcoming project on Suzanne Césaire, alongside a
selection of her short films exploring alternative voices and narratives from
African-American history.
Cauleen Smith will be joining us to discuss a programme of her experimental
works reflecting her longstanding interest in Afro-futurism and jazz,
especially Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra.
Two
programmes of short films by Kevin Jerome Everson focus on themes of
labour and place, which the artist will further develop in an illustrated talk
and conversation.
From the Asian Film Archive we
share Monographs, a series of video essays responding to the
uncertainties of the pandemic from ten contemporary Asian artists, some of whom
will be speaking at the festival with critic and essayist Kevin B. Lee.
John Gianvito
will be in conversation about his latest film, Her Socialist Smile, an
historical essay about Helen Keller that foregrounds her radical politics and
commitment to social justice.
Nuria Giménez’s
My Mexican Bretzel uses found footage and literary invention to play
with the conventions of film portraiture and highlight the invisibility of
women’s histories – themes that the artist will discuss in a live conversation.
An extended programme around the
work of Jenny Brady features three of her own films and three films
curated by the artist, alongside a talk about her current research into musical
performance and the sonic practice of Alvin Lucier.
Our archival section showcases films by Med Hondo and Sidney
Sokhona, both representing critically the lives of African workers in
France in the 1970s; writer Assia Djebar’s filmic reinterpretation of colonial
travelogues and newsreels shot in Algeria; and the collaborative films of Yugantar,
India’s first feminist film collective.
This year’s programme closes with a study day devoted to
Brazilian filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho, specifically his films Man
Marked for Death, Last Conversations and the unfinished A Day in
Life.
Come and join us!
On behalf of
the Essay Film Festival: Matthew Barrington, Lauren Collee, Kieron Corless,
Catherine Grant, Ricardo Matos Cabo, Janet McCabe, Raquel Morais, Laura Mulvey,
Michael Temple
Every year, the Cumberland Lodge Scholarships gives 10 doctoral students the opportunity to spend two years involved in our work; bringing people together, from different backgrounds, ages and perspectives, to address the causes and effects of social division and work towards more open and inclusive societies.
Scholars have the chance to network with senior figures in public life and to participate in, or help to lead discussions with people of all ages, backgrounds and perspectives that ultimately inform recommendations for practical action and policy change. Scholars also have opportunities to take part in Programme topics outside their own academic disciplines. In doing so, they will gain experience in: working collaboratively; engaging in cross-disciplinary discussion; public engagement and facilitation at events; networking; and writing for a range of different audiences.
The Scholarships fit around the demands of doctoral
research. The Scholarships are open to students of any age who are enrolled on
a doctoral programme within the UK.
There is no contribution towards tuition or maintenance costs. Scholars are, however, provided with meals, accommodation and standard economy return travel to Lodge events, amongst priority attendance at other digital events. A Personal Development Grant of up to £300 is also accessible.
Applicants must:
Have at least two years left to complete their PhD
Be studying at a UK university
Provide a CV and covering letter demonstrating a commitment to working for ‘the betterment of society’ through their academic research and/or other activities.
All types of doctoral candidates are eligible to apply,
including full-time, part-time and those on non-traditional pathways and
professional doctorate programmes. Since 2014, a total of 57 students have
enjoyed, and are currently enjoying, the benefits of this programme.
Potential Scholars are welcome to apply between 1 March 2021 – 9 April 2021. For more information about Cumberland Lodge and the Scholarship scheme, please visit their website.
My name is
Nerges Azizi and I recently started the MPhil in Law at Birkbeck, University of
London. My research addresses ways of resisting the European border regime,
with a particular focus on the role of strategic litigation. I chose this topic
because of the experiences I have had working with refugees as a translator and
interpreter. In the course of that work, the law again and again surfaced as an
obstacle and an instrument of power designed to regulate their existence,
behaviour and expectations. Despite the disciplinary and oppressive function of
the law, the people who I was working with were forced to appeal to the law in
order to receive protection. This provoked me to question whether there could
be alternative uses of the law, ones less geared towards regulating and disciplining
the lives of refugees, towards ones that hold states accountable. During my
preliminary research, I came across strategic litigation, which describes the
tactical use of legal tools to hold states accountable for their human rights
obligations.
At present, I
am sceptical about the prospects of this tool, however, I am looking forward to
examine all the ambivalences and difficulties of engaging with the law. I am
particularly interested in what the resort to legal means might be able to
reveal about the ways in which the European border regime is constituted and
contested. My geographical focus is the Mediterranean Sea, which presently has
been transformed into a site of death and racial violence by European policy
makers and border guards. I aim to place this sphere into a longer historical
perspective, in which the sea was not partitioned into north and south, east
and west – nor was it necessarily functioning as a border – rather, it might
have worked as a space of encounter, connection or a bridge. At the same time,
I will be attentive to the colonial, imperial and racial violence shaping the
history of its human crossings. Tracing histories of the Mediterranean, as well
as conceptually departing from the sea, hopefully allows me to imagine another
function for it and opens the possibility of an alternative future. I am very
excited to work on the project and look forward to the writing that will emerge
from it.
When applying
for the PhD, considering who my supervisors would be, and who else would be
working at the department and at the school where I would be based, was of high
importance to me. This is because I consider my environment to shape me
intellectually; we learn from the people around us. A PhD is a long project and
is potentially accompanied with some anxieties and self-doubt, therefore
working with supervisors whose work I am familiar with and respect ensures that
I can trust that my research will be guided in the right direction. Of course,
having the financial stability of a scholarship is indispensable and crucial to
be able to concentrate on researching and writing. This is particularly so for
students of working class background and ethnic minorities. I would recommend
everyone to apply to existing scholarship opportunities.
Birkbeck is offering a number of fully funded Diversity100 PhD studentships which actively address under-representation at the highest level of research, and encourage Black and Minority Ethnic students to consider academic research in all disciplines.
The call for Diversity100 PhD studentship applications is open until Monday 10 May. You can find further details about these studentship opportunities here including how to apply and about briefing sessions for prospective applicants where you can hear about the application process and what it is like to be a doctoral researcher at Birkbeck.
Debi Lewinson Roberts
In the video below we hear from Debi Lewinson Roberts who was awarded a Diversity100 PhD studentship and began her doctoral research in Autumn 2020. Debi speaks on the subject of bereavement, her family’s influence on her education and why she chose Birkbeck.
You may be interested in the following announcement from the National Archives which includes information about online ‘Introduction to Archival Research’ sessions.
The National Archives holds one of the largest collections in the world, containing over 11 million historical government and public records. From Domesday Book to the Leveson Enquiry, our records offer students a myriad of untapped research opportunities across a wide range of time periods and disciplines.
With so many options, however, getting started in the archives can be a daunting prospect. Many students have questions which they are too afraid to ask. How will I know where to go? What do I need to bring with me? How do I find records for my research? How do I order documents? Do I need to use gloves? How can I be sure I’m not wasting my time?
This introduction day will explain how to get started with archival research, the importance of knowing the history and structure of a collection to navigate the records, and how to make the most of your time on site.
Our upcoming events
Our next ‘Introduction to Archival Research’ sessions will be held entirely online on the following dates:
These sessions are are aimed at third year undergraduate and postgraduate students. Registration this year will be at a reduced rate of £5. While this workshop will be entirely presented online, we hope that students will be able to join us back at Kew for our Skills and Methodology workshops, which will be held in June 2021.
