BGRS Poster Competition 2023

Thursday 25 May 2023

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.

How to enter

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.

Three Minute Thesis Training sessions

The BGRS is pleased to announce the 2023 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition, which will take place on Thursday 25 May from 6pm. Please mark this date in your diaries!

Birkbeck 3MT: Thursday 25 May 2023

Join a selection of Birkbeck PhD students as they compete to communicate their compelling thesis topics in just three minutes. This event is a fantastic opportunity to share and celebrate the interests and successes of PhD researchers from across the College and we 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.

Training Sessions

As part of our support for the competition, a free programme of training sessions has been arranged. All potential 3MT competitors should attend these sessions. However, any or all of them are open to any doctoral researcher at Birkbeck who would like to gain skills in these areas:

What is it like to take part in 3MT?

Some of last year’s contenders have kindly shared what they gained from partaking.

Marie Houghton said that it ‘helped me to clarify exactly what I think the main message of my PhD is’ and that she ‘would definitely recommend taking part in the 3MT to any other PhD students.’

Hannah Reeves also said that the competition allowed her to ‘think about what matters most about my research – what do I care about, what do the community I’m working with care about, and what will this audience care about.’ She also described herself as nervous about the experience of being on stage but ‘the training helped to develop a mutually supportive atmosphere.’

Doyin Olorunfemi described how ‘the exercise of delivering a concise speech gives you clarity of mind as a researcher and clarifies your contribution.’ She would ‘highly recommend the competition.’

2022 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition: Join the Audience on 16 June

Registration now open for this event

You can be part of the audience for this year’s Three Minute Thesis Competition. On Thursday 16 June, 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

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.

Register now to be part of the audience.

BGRS Conference – Postponed

As a result of the current situation we have had to postpone the BGRS Conference which will no longer take place on 22-23 April. However, we do intend to find an alternative date for the event later in the year and will confirm this once available.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank all who had helped to shape the conference through contributions by email, discussion off line, by attending any of the BGRS conference meetings, or by volunteering to take part in the student sessions on methods/ disciplines or the poster competition. Many thanks too to speakers who had agreed to take part.

Thanks in particular to those of you who have been active in the conference steering group and who had until recently been choosing and inviting speakers and helping to set things in place. I’m hopeful that we will be able to build on the work done so far and deliver an exciting event later in the year.

CHASE Training opportunities for all Arts and Humanities PhD Students at Birkbeck

The following events and opportunities are available via the AHRC funded CHASE Doctoral Training Programme. All of the opportunities below are open to all Arts and Humanities PhD students at Birkbeck, regardless of whether they are funded or self-funded.

Future Pathways in Medieval and Early Modern Studies: Academia and Beyond

Friday, 6 March and Friday 27 March

The aim of these two workshops is to explore the possible pathways that medieval and early modern studies can open up for future careers. Both workshops will host a group of speakers with PhDs in various aspects of medieval and early modern studies that have since pursued a wide array of careers. Their personal knowledge and experiences will provide the springboard for informal roundtable discussions and exercises. These events will encourage current postgraduate students to reflect critically on the ways in which one can communicate and curate research and teaching expertise, while they will also offer opportunities for new connections to be made with a variety of individuals, institutions and sectors.


Frames and Transitions

20 & 21 March | Birkbeck, University of London

FRAMES – Friday 20 March
The annual TRANSITIONS symposium has been extended with FRAMES, a day of workshops for CHASE researchers. The workshops are Graphic Medicine with Ian Williams and Comics as Research Practice with Nick Sousanis.

The workshops are focussed on comics and arts as part of the research process, but are open to all research students affiliated with CHASE institutions.

The day is divided into two workshop sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The morning session is Graphic Medicine with Ian Williams. The afternoon session is Comics as Research Practice with Nick Sousanis.

TRANSITIONS – Saturday 22 March

Transitions: New Directions in Comics Studies is an annual one-day symposium promoting new research and multi-disciplinary academic study  of comics / comix / bande dessinée / manga / and other forms of sequential art. The Transitions symposia have been a fixture on the UK comics scholarship landscape, with a focus on new voices and novel approaches in comics research. The programme emphasises a range of approaches in research, and especially invites participation from research students and early career researchers.



Critical Race Studies and the Premodern: Archive and Seminar

8 & 9 June | University of Sussex

Decolonising the Curriculum (Practical Funded by the CHASE Consortium, the Universities of East Anglia and Sussex are hosting two postgraduate training workshops on critical race studies and the pre-modern. This, the second of two events, will be held at The University of Sussex, 8-9 June 2020, and will focus on research. The event is designed to develop students’ professional skills. We invite expressions of interest from all postgraduates working in the Humanities (giving papers, designing and chairing sessions, attending).

Training for PhD students – Love Data Week 2020

The following events are highlighted to all Birkbeck Research students as part of Birkbeck Love Data Week 2020.

Introduction to Research Data Management

Wednesday 12 February, 11.30-13.00

Register here

This interactive session will include discussion and opportunities for questions. It will cover all the basics of Research Data Management including:

  • why thinking about data management is a good idea
  • what the risks are
  • why planning for the long term helps
  • what you can do about any issues or requirements that you identify

This event will be useful for any students embarking on research, or established academics looking to improve their understanding of how to manage their data. 

Researching LGBTQ+ Communities: openness, ethics and consent

WEDNESDAY 12 FEBRUARY, 18.30 – 19.45

Register here

What ethical implications do researchers working with LGBTQ+ communities need to consider? How do we navigate tensions in the drive to make data open? How do we manage consent in this context? 

Birkbeck academics Dr Fiona Tasker (Reader in Psychology) and Ralph Day (doctoral researcher in contemporary history) will discuss their research, and how they work with their potentially sensitive data. 

Fiona has published extensively on topics including family relationships, identity development of adults and children, and children’s social and emotional development in both non-traditional and new family forms and LGBTQ parenting. 

Ralph’s current research focuses on queer sexualities and the telephone in Britain from the 1970s to the 1990s through a study of the telephone information and support service London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard. 

This event is being organised as part of Love Data Week and as part of the Library’s LGBT+ History Month programme. 

Data Management Plans for Postgraduate Research Students

Friday 14 FEBRUARY, 11.30 – 13.00

Register here

This session is aimed at postgraduate research students and Master’s research students, who are creating or reusing data, or who may require ethical approval, and would like to create a Data Management Plans (DMPs) to help guide them through their project.
 
DMPs are also important documents for funded research, with many funders requiring them as part of a bid. Being familiar with the process of creating DMPs is therefore a useful research skill.
We will use example plans and online tools to create DMPs, and look at how to improve them.

Highlighted CHASE training opportunities and calls

The following events and opportunities are available via the AHRC funded CHASE Doctoral Training Programme. All of the opportunities below are open to all Arts and Humanities PhD students at Birkbeck, regardless of whether they are funded or self-funded. If I could also draw your attention to a couple of calls for papers/participation that are currently open.

Journal recruiting members for next Editorial Board

Brief Encounters is currently recruiting the next Editorial Board to oversee the creation of issue 5 – see below press release:

Seaside, Ruin and De-Industrialisation on the Cleveland Coast

Friday 10th to sunday 12th of January

Redcar/Cleveland

Following the critical excursion Beyond the Heartlands and building on themes of de-industrialisation, landscape and ruin, the ‘Space Place Time’ research collective are calling for participants for a two-day critical excursion to Redcar and Cleveland. Completed in 1846, the Middlesbrough and Redcar Railway hoped to attract tourism, but like much of the region, Redcar’s expansion came with the 1850 discovery of iron ore in the Eston area of the Cleveland Hills. The engine of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, Redcar was simultaneously home to a Victorian pleasure pier. The pier’s demolition in 1981 can be seen as an allegory of the decade’s slum, which saw the simultaneous decline of both industries.

Find out more here

The Frankfurt Exotic: broken objects and porous walls in Naples

Beginning of April (deadline to apply 15 Jan)

Naples, Italy

Following the critical excursion Re-mapping the Arcades Project in Glasgow, and building on the field engagement with the work and cities of Walter Benjamin, we are calling for participants in a critical excursion in Naples: The Frankfurt Exotic: broken objects and porous walls in Naples. This critical excursion will take place over 4 nights at the beginning of April 2020 and will involve a series of workshops, walking tours and screenings with the anticipated outcome of a publication recording conversations, presentations, works in progress, creative responses and translation work.

Find out more and apply here

Bookscapes

Friday 17th of January (from 12:00) – Norfolk Heritage Centre

Saturday 18th January – Blickling Estate

The second of the CHASE DTP-funded Bookscapes workshops, offering PhD students advanced training in palaeographical, codicological and bibliographical skills, will take place on 17th-18th January 2020, hosted by the University of East Anglia and led by Tom Roebuck and Sophie Butler. At the Norfolk Heritage Centre, on day one of the workshop, attending students will have the opportunity to engage with the collections of the original Norwich City Library (founded in 1618). The workshop will move to Blickling Estate on the second day, where the students will focus on the techniques and history of bookbinding and the history of the book. The second day’s workshop will be led by Nicholas Pickwoad, one of the leading experts on bookbinding and an adviser to the National Trust on book conservation.

Numbers for the workshops are strictly limited. We encourage all interested PhD students to contact bookscapes@kent.ac.uk as soon as possible. You can also follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/bookscapes.

CHASE Essentials – Thesis Boot Camp

Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd of February

University of Sussex

Are you a mid- or late-stage doctoral researcher, struggling to make progress with your thesis? Do you keep putting off your writing? If so, Thesis Boot Camp could be the solution. Deadline to apply – 17 January.

Find out more and register here

Aural Diversity

Various dates and venues, please see below

Aural Diversity is a series of lectures, workshops and in-situ training sessions seeking to encourage creative and critical attention towards aural diversity within the arts and humanities, with particular focus on an ecology of the ear, designed for all those researching within the Arts and Humanities, especially those with an interest in the creative, social and political dimensions of sound and listening.

These sessions specifically address the need for further study and practice inspired by, and concerning, this specific turn in research and focus on a particular theme led by an academic/practitioner with invited guests selected to represent a range of approaches. 

Session #1 | Thursday 13 February | 1000-1800 | Goldsmiths, University of London – Register here

Session # 2 | Thursday 27 February | 1000-1800 | Room 264, Senate House, London – Register here

Session #3 | Thursday 12 March | 1000-1800 | Goldsmiths, University of London – Register here

Plenary | Thursday 26 March | 1500-1800 | Keynes Library, Birkbeck, University of London – Register here

Ethnography and Film. Exploring Labour, Technology and Mediation in the Egyptian Film Industry

19 Feb (14:00-20:30)

University of Kent

The workshop will offer participants advanced training in ethnography, applied to the context of the Egyptian Film industry. Dr El Khachab’s workshop will outline how researchers can successfully apply ethnographic methodologies, developed in Anthropology, to research issues about arts and media, especially film. Dr El Khachab will outline the strategies he developed during his PhD research to gather observations, interviews and documentary data from creatives and technicians working in the largest and most influential media industry in the Arab world. He will also provide participants an insight into how he adapted the presentation of his findings from his PhD thesis into his forthcoming monograph, The Egyptian Film Industry: Labor, Technology, Mediation.

Find out more and register here

Call for proposals | The Essay Film Festival: Research, Critique, Practice

As part of its new collaborative partnership with CHASE, the Essay Film Festival is inviting proposals from doctoral students for a student-led symposium exploring essayistic forms and their relationship to academic research, social critique and artistic practice.

The conference will combine research presentations and film screenings, including examples of practice-led researchers talking through, questioning and “essaying” their own work. This event will follow the sixth edition of the Essay Film Festival, which will take place at Birkbeck Cinema, ICA, Goethe-Institut and Institut Français, from 26 March to 4 April 2020.

The symposium will be held at Birkbeck Cinema in May 2020 (exact date to be confirmed), more than a month after the end of the festival. The idea of the conference is, therefore, to provide a space for critical reflection and debate, with a certain detachment from the EFF programme itself, as well as to propose and discuss new directions for the festival in the future.

Deadline – Friday 14 February

Full details here

Call for Papers | Critical Race Studies and the Premodern: Archive and Seminar

23rd to 24th March – University of East Anglia
8th to 9th June – University of Sussex

Universities of East Anglia and Sussex are hosting two postgraduate training workshops on critical race studies and the pre-modern. The first of these will be held at the University of East Anglia, 23-24 March 2020, and will focus on teaching and pedagogy; the second will be held at The University of Sussex, 8-9 June 2020, and will focus on research. Both events are designed to develop students’ professional skills. We invite expressions of interest from all postgraduates working in the Humanities (giving papers, designing and chairing sessions, attending).

Deadline – Friday 24 January

Find out more here

Highlighted CHASE Training Opportunities

The following events and opportunities are available via the AHRC funded CHASE Doctoral Training Programme. All of the opportunities below are open to all Arts and Humanities PhD students at Birkbeck, regardless of whether they are funded or self-funded.

Performing Theory Series – Nuclear Hallucinations

Thursday, 24 October 2019 | 17:00  20:00

Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, SE14 6NW
MRB Screen 1

This event inaugurates a new academic year for those of us doing Screen related research, by hearing from practitioners about the relationship between their ideas and their images.

Fathima Nizaruddin will be here to screen and discuss her 2016 film,  Nuclear Hallucinations.

Discussion and reception to follow.

Find out more and register here

Translation x Creative Writing

Various dates from 28 October | 1400-1600 | University of East Anglia

This series of masterclasses is by translators of creative writing for creative writers and is designed to provide insight into these acts of translation that many if not all creative writers engage with. The sessions are small group and are led by the world’s leading translators – including two Booker Prize nominees and one Booker winner. Sessions will be craft focused. Session leaders include Jeremy Tiang, Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Duncan Large, Daniel Hahn and Marilyn Booth who will share their expertise and insights exclusively on the topic. Each masterclass will explore from a different perspective the relationship between translation and creative writing – which, although inextricably connected, are rarely considered together.

Find out more and register here

CHASE Latin for Medieval and Early Modernists 2019/20

4-8 November & 1-5 June 2020 | University of East Anglia

The CHASE Latin for Medievalists and Early Modernists course is a series of workshops and residential weeks designed to provide Latin tuition from beginner to intermediate levels, as well as facilitate the discussion and development of Latin methodologies and research practice. A grasp of Latin is essential to cutting-edge work in medieval and early modern studies but tuition is often hard to come by – we aim to provide CHASE scholars with the necessary skills to produce top-quality research and to form a network of Latin scholars throughout the academy.

Find out more and register here

FACT///.Mapping Feminists Coding Practices Symposium

Wednesday, 20 November 2019 | Sussex Humanities Lab, University of Sussex

‘Mapping Feminists Coding Practices’, a one-day symposium at the Sussex Humanities Lab, University of Sussex, is the first in a series of events that explore feminist coding practices and the historic context of feminism and technology. It explores some of the affordances and resistances of computational technology. Its aim is to develop a wider understanding of current practices and research which make positive interventions into and within computation, in its widest possible interpretation, from a feminist perspective. 

Find out more and register here

Fifty Years of Skinner’s “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas”

Friday, 29 November – Saturday, 30 November 2019 | University of Sussex

This programme takes the opportunity of the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most influential article on intellectual-historical methods, Quentin Skinner’s “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” (1969), to introduce doctoral participants to the methodological commitments within the field, engaging them in cutting-edge critical reflection on method. Participants will gain a thorough foundation in the available methods in the history of ideas, engage in debates regarding method, and participate in the critical evaluation of such methodologies, considering possible alternatives. 

Find out more and register here

If you have any questions about the above training, please email enquiries@chase.ac.uk

Digital Inclusion: Bridging Divides Conference – Bursary places available for PhD students

14 November

We have been made aware of a opportunities for PhD students to attend the Digital Inclusion: Bridging Divides Conference at Cumberland Lodge.

The Digital Inclusion: Bridging Divides Conference brings together academics, policymakers, future leaders, the private sector, civil society and community practitioners in order to explore innovative and effective ways of promoting equal access to high-quality digital education and political participation across society. Conference participants will investigate how intelligent technology can foster a greater sense of community and inclusion in a digital world, and increase social and political opportunities.

The Conference will start at 10 am on Thursday, 14 November, and finish at 4 pm on Friday, 15 November 2019. Participants are expected to attend the whole event.

Conference costs

Attendance at this conference is supported by their charitable funds and includes overnight accommodation at Cumberland Lodge on 14 November and all meals during your stay.

Registrations of interest in attending are incited, but attendance will be by invitation only, to ensure broad and balanced representation. If you would like to be part of this conference, please click on the ‘Make Enquiry’ button on the event webpage to let them know how and why you would like to contribute.

Travel bursaries available

They are pleased to be able to offer five bursaries for this conference, to support PhD students working in relevant fields with the costs of travelling to and from Cumberland Lodge. All conference costs, accommodation and meals will be provided free of charge.

To find out more about the conference and to download the bursary application form, please visit their website. The deadline for applications is Monday 14 October.