Author: ubimag001

BGRS Administrator

2023 Birkbeck 3-minute Thesis competition: Join the audience on Thursday 25 May

On Thursday 25 May, an expert panel of judges will decide which Birkbeck student has presented the most compelling, convincing, and concise summary of their thesis. There’s a lot at stake: not only the prestige of winning and the confidence that goes with it, but also –

  • £500 to the overall winner
  • £250 to the runner-up
The seven finalists from the 2022 3-minute thesis competition.

This is the headline BGRS event of the year

This is an event for all doctoral researchers and also for anyone interested in studying for a PhD. The event will be followed by a drinks reception and a chance to view entries to the BGRS Poster Competition.

During the reception prizes will be awarded to the 3 Minute Thesis Competition and the Poster Competition winners.

Register to attend

You can be part of the audience for this year’s Three Minute Thesis Competition.

Registration is now open for this event

As part of the audience you will have a vote to decide who is the People’s Choice. You can also join the Birkbeck postgraduate community in celebrating the diversity of research interests undertaken here, and raise a glass to that with a drinks reception after the winners have been announced.

If you would like to participate in this year’s competition please see this post for more information.

Audio-Visual Skills Workshop – Urban Margins

You are invited to apply to a student-led training in audio-visual research techniques. This series of four workshops and related events will be facilitated by The Derek Jarman Lab in collaboration with BISR Urban Intersections Working Group and Corkscrew Practice-Based research network.

Over the course of this free four-week course, you would be one of up to eight participants receiving a practical introduction to audio-visual skills PGR students can incorporate into their research. PGR students from any department can apply. You will learn basic tools to enable greater innovation within your research data collection and dissemination.

The course will be organised around a shared theme of “urban margins”, inspired by a related event taking place the week before the workshops start, titled ‘Urban Intersections at the Margins’, which you would be invited and encouraged to join. The notion of urban ‘margins’ arguably invokes a stigmatised frame: one in which subjects, bodies or sites are located ‘on the margin’ of the city; or on the fringes of a hegemonic urban social order. But what if urban margins were reimagined beyond such stigmatised frames, as a space of hybridity, where new dynamics might arise, demanding new ways of knowing and intervening in urban realities? This broad theme will provide a thematic and conceptual context through which you will develop your audio-visual skills.

The weekly, day-long Friday workshops will be delivered through the Derek Jarman Lab. Each week’s workshop will focus on a different set of skills. We will begin with still photography, then sound recording, then moving image, and finish with a session on how to organise shoots, plan equipment and cover some of the legal aspects of using found/archival material. The mornings will be practical, and you will get hands-on experience with how to get the best out of one’s chosen piece of equipment. The afternoon will be spent using editing software, where you will learn how to get the best from your recordings. Baseline knowledge of editing software is also key to producing high-quality output from documentation collected during research.

You do not need to have any kind of prior audio-visual experience, and “urban margins” does not have to be a focus of your research. You simply need an interest in developing skills and knowledge in audio-visual techniques. Following the workshop, you will have the opportunity to show and discuss your work in progress at an event organised with the Urban Intersections Working Group and Corkscrew (likely to take place in late June or early July, more details to come).

To apply, please write a short paragraph (up to 300 words) on why this course interests you and how you would use the skills gained in relation to your doctoral research. Please note that applicants are required to attend all workshops and are advised to attend the sessions on the 26th of May and the 30th of June. Please do not apply if you cannot attend the session on the 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd of June from 10 am to 4 pm

The deadline for application is the 24th of March 2023. You will hear back by 24th April 2023.

Timeline

DATE: 26th of May

Urban Intersections at the Margins, an informal workshop bringing interdisciplinary approaches and methods of seeing urbanisation at the ‘margin’, both in the Global South and North. 26 May 2023, afternoon, 43 Gordon Square. 

A screening of Baronesa (Brazil, 2017), co-sponsored by the Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image, followed by a roundtable discussion with Dr Louisa Acciari (UCL), Dr Gracia Ramirez (UAL) and Dr Mara Nogueira (Birkbeck). 26 May 2023, 6 pm, Birkbeck Cinema. 

[These events are not obligatory for the workshop participants but are strongly encouraged]

#1 Stills

DATE: 2nd June 2023

Time: 10 am to 5 pm

Location: Derek Jarman Lab, 43 Gordon Square

#2 Sound

DATE: 9th June 2023

Time: 10 am to 5 pm

Location: Derek Jarman Lab, 43 Gordon Square

#3 Moving Image

DATE: 16th June 2023

Time: 10 am to 5 pm

Location: Derek Jarman Lab, 43 Gordon Square

#4 Planning and Collaboration

DATE: 23rd June 2023

Time: 10 am to 5 pm

Location: Derek Jarman Lab, 43 Gordon Square

DATE: 30th June 2023

An informal event where workshop participants can share their work in progress with members of the Corkscrew practice-based research network and the Urban Intersections working group. Location: TBC

British Federation of Women Graduates Awards for doctoral students 2023

Applications for British Federation of Women Graduates Academic
Awards are now being sought. The Awards are made to women doctoral students who will be in, or going into, their third year (or part time equivalent) of work for a doctorate in the autumn of 2023.


Awards are, in effect, one off prizes varying in value from £1,000 to £6,000 and are given for outstanding academic excellence coupled with the ability to communicate to an educated but non-specialist audience.
50% of the award will be paid in the autumn of 2023, near the start of the academic year, with 50% on receipt of a progress report in spring 2024.
For further details please go to:
www.bfwg.org.uk

and look up under ‘Awards/Scholarships’ where more information,
including criteria for eligibility, can be found.
Closing date for applications is:
5pm on Friday 3rd March 2023

BRITISH FEDERATION OF WOMEN GRADUATES
RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS DAY
Saturday 13th May 2023
10.30am – 4.00pm


Venue: Institute of Archaeology, UCL, Gordon Square, London WC1 0PY
The Research Presentations Day is when BFWG invites doctoral students to present their research to a general, i.e. not subject specialist, audience.


• Are you a woman doctoral student?
• Do you have research you would like to present to a discerning audience
– and have the chance of winning a small prize of £120 for the best presentation?
• Or would you like to join with us, just to meet and listen to other postgraduate women students presenting their research?


Our Research Presentations Day (RPD) offers these opportunities. Past attendees, both presenters and audience, have found the Day thoroughly enjoyable and helpful in developing presentation skills.
The day will also involve an introduction to the 2022 BFWG Scholarship Fund Academic Award winners.
If you think you would like to submit an abstract please look at BFWG webpages
www.bfwg.org.uk or contact rpd@bfwg.org.uk for further details. Closing date for applications is: March 31st 2023.
All -students, academics, anyone else interested (male or female) – are welcome to attend as audience. Lunch is included and there is a door charge of £10 but no charge for bona fide students whether attending as presenters or as audience.

CHASE Feminist Network: Open Forum Meeting 2023

Join us in this open discussion to find your place in the CHASE Feminist Network, now rescheduled for 12 January 2023, 16:00 GMT.

The CHASE Feminist Network invites you to an open forum meeting to discuss the future of the network. Help shape this important and impactful network and come discuss what events you’d like to attend, participate in or organise. 

On the agenda: We will be reviving the CHASE Feminist Network Conference this year, a popular and successful in-person event in pre-pandemic years. If you have any thoughts on what you’d like to see for this conference, ideas for themes or any other suggestions, please bring them with you to the Open Forum.

Beyond that, we’re looking for input on how the network should be run, what kind of events you’d like to see, and most importantly, how we can bridge the incredible programmes of CFN’s past archives with our promising next chapter.

About CFN: The CHASE Feminist Network has been facilitating incredible events and projects since 2016. From small project grants to interdisciplinary conferences, this inclusive space offers a breadth of opportunities to explore new ways to engage with and advocate for feminism in all its varieties. Now, after a short hiatus, we’re starting afresh with new ideas and a new cohort. And we want you to be a part of it.

All are welcome, see you there!

2022 Gwynne-Vaughan Medal

Deadline for entries extended to midday 14 October

The Birkbeck Graduate Research School (BGRS) aims to highlight the activities and successes of our research student community. We are pleased to announce the 2022 Gwynne-Vaughan Medal which is awarded to Birkbeck Doctoral students able to demonstrate the most notable contribution to their field while undertaking their research degree. The winners will be awarded a £250 prize, a formal certificate and a distinctive medal.

Eligibility

There are two categories for entry:

Current doctoral students

  • This category is open to all current part time and full time doctoral students enrolled at Birkbeck in academic year 2021/22
  • Any achievements you include must have taken place while you were registered as a Birkbeck Doctoral student up to 31 July 2022

Doctoral awardees

  • This category is open to any student who was enrolled in academic year 2019/20, 2020/21 and who has already been awarded their doctorate.
  • Any achievements you include must have taken place before your doctorate was awarded.

How to enter

Applicants must complete the following Gwynne-Vaughan Prize form which includes a statement from the student and a supporting statement from the supervisor.

Gwynne-Vaughan-prize-entry-form-and-guidanceDownload

Your completed form should be sent by email to graduateresearchschool@bbk.ac.uk

Deadline for entries

Friday 14 October, midday

Consideration of entries

All entries will be considered by the Research Student Sub-Committee (RSSC). The winners will be announced at the end of the Autumn term at a BGRS event that will be open to all research students at Birkbeck.

CHASE placement: Essay Film Festival 2023

Full-time placement of 6 months (FTE) which could be worked over 9 months. Work pattern to be agreed with successful candidate and variable to meet project needs. Expected start date: any time from October 2022 (flexible).

Project description and training opportunities: Curatorial internship at the Essay Film Festival, Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image: http://www.essayfilmfestival.com

The Essay Film Festival is a well-established film festival, taking place in London in late-March/early-April since 2015, and currently planning for its ninth iteration in spring 2023. The EFF screenings and events are held at Birkbeck Cinema, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and other venues (e.g., Goethe-Institut, Institut Français). The EFF is a unique project in that it is a research-based film festival, created in the context of a multidisciplinary and public-facing research institute (Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image). The Birkbeck academics (Janet McCabe, Laura Mulvey, Michael Temple) involved in the EFF team consider film curating and film programming as an integral part of their research and teaching, and they share a vision of how their academic work interacts with artistic creation, political debate, and social activism.

The festival is highly focused and distinct in its aims. It does not seek to compete with or emulate any existing film festival, and this is one reason why it has been so successful, gaining international recognition alongside strong and committed audiences at home. We focus on the essayistic in film and media practices past and present, where the “essay film” is understood as the creative and critical intersection between the documentary and the experimental: on the one hand, the ambition to engage critically with the real, the everyday, the lived experiences of communities and societies across the globe; and, on the other, a desire to challenge and explore the formal language and technical possibilities of audiovisual media, both contemporary and historical. We have also boldly expanded the understanding of essayistic film and media practice beyond the western tradition where the “essay film” once appeared to reside, and we have thus shown work and engaged with filmmakers and artists from Iran, the Lebanon, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Korea, Mexico, Argentina – to give a few examples – as well as from various European countries and North America.

Our working method is also unique. We deliberately limit the number of screenings and events to a level that allows us to focus on quality rather than quantity. We curate each session with great care and attention, always looking for the best way to present the films and the filmmakers as part of a critical conversation – rather than the conveyor-belt of “screening plus Q&A” that typifies so many other film festivals. Thus, while our festival programme may only feature 12 to 15 sessions, stretched over a week to 10 days, most of these sessions are very substantial, lasting several hours, sometimes a whole day or more, and therefore allowing for multiple screenings, long-form screenings, and crucially the right amount of time for interventions by artists, academics, and activists, as part of a well-rounded and well-informed public conversation. Our approach to film curating is greatly appreciated by the artists themselves, who happily respond to the challenge of more open and sometimes “performative” modes of presenting and discussing their work.

This is the ambitious and dynamic environment in which we work, and the context in which we would like to offer a curatorial placement to a CHASE doctoral student willing to learn and to share our vision.

Role and responsibilities:

The successful candidate will work with the EFF programming team, currently including: EFF Director Dr Michael Temple and the BIMI Manager Matthew Barrington (also a Birkbeck doctoral student), Professor Laura Mulvey (Birkbeck), Dr Janet McCabe (Birkbeck), Ricardo Matos Cabo (independent curator and Birkbeck doctoral student), Kieron Corless (deputy editor Sight & Sound), and Raquel Morais (independent curator and Birkbeck doctoral student).

While managed and mentored by the EFF Director and BIMI Manager, the intern will be totally integrated into the programming team and will work as a full and equal member of this group, learning and receiving training on the job in all aspects of creating and curating this unique festival.

The internship duration will be the equivalent of 6 months full-time, but this could be adapted to suit the candidate, for example 2 or 3 days per week, over a longer period. For this coming year, 2022-23, we would like the placement to begin at some point during the Autumn term, although we will certainly be flexible regarding the start date and the number of days worked per week.

Key tasks and training opportunities:

The initial line describes activities; the bullet-point the training / development opportunities afforded

Participation in and minuting of EFF group meetings

·        Training – Working with others; communication;

Prospection and selection of films, artists, speakers, and discussants

·         Training – Knowledge base; cognitive and organizational abilities; creativity

Conceptualisation of screenings and content of discussion/debate events

·         Training – Knowledge base; cognitive and organizational abilities; creativity

Contact, negotiation and liaison with potential and existing EFF partners, such as embassies and consulates, cultural institutes, arts foundations and cultural organisations, university research centres, film and arts festivals

·         Training – Communication; ability to work flexibly with others

Contact and negotiation with rights-owners, film distributors, film archives

·         Training – Knowledge base and legal/other issues; working with others; time-management

Sourcing and administration of film prints, including technical specifications and shipping

·         Training – Knowledge base; working with others; time-management

Technical checking and testing of all materials to be shown at the festival

·         Training – Knowledge base; working with others; time-management

 Organisation of travel and accommodation arrangements for artists and other contributors

·         Training – Knowledge base; working with others; communication

 Preparation of research materials on selected films and filmmakers for EFF website and other platforms

·         Training – Knowledge base; cognitive and organizational abilities; creativity; communication and dissemination

 Preparation of publicity and advertising materials, for social media and traditional media campaigns

·         Training – Knowledge base; cognitive and organizational abilities; creativity; communication and dissemination; working with others; time-management

Birkbeck Open Research Symposium – call for lightning talks: Tuesday 1 November 1-5pm

Birkbeck Library is pleased to announce its first Birkbeck Open Research Symposium which this year is themed “Open for Climate Justice”, in line with International Open Access Week

The event features a keynote from Dr Caroline Edwards, and an afternoon of speakers and lightning talks, aimed at discussing the crossovers between open access and climate justice. This will be a hybrid event, with attendees both online and in person.

Themes could include but are not restricted to: open access, climate change, environmental and climate justice, environmental issues, climate activism, open climate data, international inequalities in climate action.

  • Talks will last 10 minutes each, with 5 minutes for questions to follow.  
  • Talks should include at least one slide as there may not be a camera for online participants to view the speaker. 
  • Talks can be delivered online (MS Teams) or in-person.

To participate, please submit a brief lightning talk outline with title and all author affiliation(s) and indicate your preference for an in-person or virtual format via the lightning talk submission form. The deadline is Friday 23 September. 

If you have any questions please contact David McElroy, d.mcelroy@bbk.ac.uk  

Submissions will be reviewed by a non-expert panel.  Submission form: Birkbeck Open Research Symposium – lightning talks submission form

This call is open to Birkbeck staff and postgraduate students, and non-Birkbeck colleagues in relevant areas.​​​​​​​

Bloomsbury Colleges PhD Studentships (Call for SUPERVISOR applications)

The Bloomsbury Colleges Consortium (Birkbeck, UCL Institute of Education, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Royal Veterinary College and School of Oriental and African Studies) have opened applications for 10 three-year PhD studentships, available for intercollegiate research collaborations starting October 2023. 

The studentships will cover fees at the home rate and maintenance at the level recommended by the Research Councils. Supervisors wishing to invite applications from international students will be required to demonstrate how they will meet the costs of overseas fees from other sources. 

The deadline for submissions is Monday 10 October 2022 and successful applicants will be notified by the end of November. Further information and applications form available below.  Applications should be submitted by the lead applicant to: graduateresearchschool@bbk.ac.uk

BCS-call-for-applications-2023Download
Timetable-for-Bloomsbury-Colleges-Studentships-2023Download
BCS-Staff-application-form-for-2023-entryDownload

Three Minute Thesis Competition 2022

On Thursday 16 June, Birkbeck doctoral students took part in the 2022 Three Minute Thesis Competition. Meiyun Meng was the overall winner and received a £500 prize.
From left to right: Hannah Reeves (people’s choice); Carlo Palombo; Meiyun Meng (overall winner); Tom Nealon; Marie Houghton; Doyin Olorunfemi (runner up); Fengzhi Zhao.

2022 3MT Competition

On Thursday 16 June around 60 people attended the Birkbeck Three Minute Thesis Competition in the Clore Lecture Theatre. This was the fourth time the competition has been run at Birkbeck and the first time since 2019. The seven contestants displayed excellent presentational skills to convey their research in a concise and engaging manner, all managing to conclude with just a few seconds to spare. As always at Birkbeck, there was a wide range of subjects from how cross-sectional data can help cure cancer to the experience of flat sharing among the over-30s.

Winner: Meiyun Meng

After the judges had watched the candidates make their presentations, Meiyun Meng (Department of Geography) was chosen as the overall winner for her lively and engaging talk ‘Individualising life courses: Home-making of highly educated women in Shenzhen, China’. Meiyun is in her third year as a doctoral researcher in Geography.

Runner up: Doyin Olorunfemi

In addition to the overall winner, the judges awarded a £250 runner up prize to Doyin Olorunfemi (Department of Management) for her talk on ‘From Selling to Venturing’.

People’s Prize Winner

The overall winner and runner up were chosen by a panel of 3 Birkbeck experts but the audience also played a key role and were asked to use their votes to select a People’s Choice winner. This prize was awarded to Hannah Reeves (Department of Psychosocial Studies) for her talk ‘Crossbones Graveyard: remembering the dead, or breathing with them?‘

2022 3MT Talks

A list of all the competitors and their talks is provided below.

Doyin Olorunfemi ‘From Selling to Venturing’
Marie Houghton ‘Can home and happiness be found living in a house share after the age of 30?’
Hannah Reeves ‘Crossbones Graveyard: remembering the dead, or breathing with them?’
Meiyun Meng ‘Individualising life courses: Home-making of highly educated women in Shenzhen, China’
Fengzhi Zhao ‘A Tale of Two Cosmopolitan Shanghai(s)’
Tom Nealon ‘Inferring Time Varying Processes from Cross-Sectional Data’
Carlo Palombo ‘On the prohibition of nudity’