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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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
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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.
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.
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).
A steering group has identified themes for the sessions but we are asking for additional help in organising the second day of the conference. We are looking for volunteers to help identify suitable contributors (academic staff, current Birkbeck doctoral researchers or alumni) and to organise for them to take part in each theme.
By taking part in this way you will have the chance to meet other PhD students and contribute to this exciting event. If you are willing to take part we will put you in contact with members of the steering group or others who would like to volunteer and you would be asked to work together on the theme you are interested in.
We invite you to let us know by
the end of Tuesday 4 February if you are willing to help in this way.
BGRS Postgraduate Research Conference: 22-23 April 2020
2020 will mark the 100th anniversary of Birkbeck joining the University of London, and also the 100th anniversary of our first PhD. To celebrate these milestones as we approach the College’s 200th year, the BGRS is organising a centenary conference, led by current PhD students and doctoral alumni.
Provisionally
entitled #BBKConversations, it will be a great opportunity for the whole Birkbeck
postgraduate research community to engage with the big issues of the day. The
steering committee are in the early stages of planning the conference, but we
need your help to shape it.
Over the course of
two days, we hope to arrange lectures, workshops and maybe an exhibition, using
our current research as well as the work of alumni to frame some big
#BBKConversations.
Below are some
themes the committee has come up with, but we would really like your input. What
do you want to discuss and focus on? We are looking for exciting and
innovative ways to bring together researchers in business, humanities, social
sciences, STEM, and everything in between.
Whether or not you want to take an active role in the conference, please put the 22nd and 23rd of April in your diary. If you would like to join the committee, propose a theme or participate in one of the #BBKConversations, please contact the BGRS Manager Tim Hoe (t.hoe@bbk.ac.uk). Get in touch with any and every idea no matter how big or small, and let’s make this a great conference. Please let Tim have your ideas by the 2nd of December so we can discuss them at our planning workshop.
The conference committee will hold a workshop on the 4th of December from 15:00 to 17:00 in Clore 101 – this will be open to anyone who would like to contribute to planning and organisation of the conference.
Suggested themes
If Birkbeck did not exist would we need to invent it? What is the relevance of Birkbeck’s mission and its particular character in relation to society today?
What have Birkbeck’s contributions to society and to research been? The conference could showcase this in relation to alumni. What should Birkbeck’s future research focus be?
What are the historic and current roles for Birkbeck in terms of activism and research? Birkbeck has a radical history but should a university be radical?
Is London a global city-state? If so, is that good or bad for the UK? It was agreed that the relationship between education, social mobility and migration could be explored in the context of London and the rest of the UK.
Access and engagement. What is the future of the university in relation to race and migration, borders and decolonisation of the curriculum? What does a modern doctoral graduate look like and what journeys have led to our research students coming to Birkbeck? It would be interesting to explore some of the different stories and the role of a PhD in different cultures, with opportunities to interact and to explore these issues further at the conference.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative and qualitative research? This could work as a debate – with representatives from both sides.
What role does objectivity play in research? How does storytelling and narrative relate to research? What is reality – and what are the consequences of choices made when framing research?
What relevance do issues of privacy and digital data have in research? This could include discussion of artificial intelligence, deep learning, big data and ethics.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Throughout 21-25 October Birkbeck PhD students are invited to attend events organised by the Birkbeck Library as part of International Open Access Week.
These events will let you learn about developments which are of increasing importance to your current and future research. The programme includes the following events – registration is via the following links.
Monday 21st October, 11.00-11.30, Library Training Room
This session will give an overview of the changes and challenges in publishing models, for libraries with the move from traditional subscriptions, to a hybrid of subscriptions and open access, to transformative agreements which seek to offset article processing charges (APCs).
This is an interactive 1.5hour long session. There will be discussion and opportunities for questions.
This session is aimed at Postgraduate Research Students including Doctoral and Masters Research Students, who are creating or reusing data, or who may require ethical approval, and would like to create a Data Management Plan (DMP) to help guide them through their project.
These plans 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.
If you have questions about open access publishing, where you should put your research data, what Plan S is and what it means at Birkbeck, then pop in to this session to find the answers. David McElroy is our Research Data Support Manager and Paul Rigg our Senior Assistant Librarian (Repository & Digital Media Management) and they will be on hand to talk through any queries that you have. This is an open session, no booking required.
If you have questions about open access publishing, where you should put your research data, what Plan S is and what it means at Birkbeck, then pop in to this session to find the answers. David McElroy is our Research Data Support Manager and Paul Rigg our Senior Assistant Librarian (Repository & Digital Media Management) and they will be on hand to talk through any queries that you have. This is an open session, no booking required.
Plan S aims to significantly shake up the current Open Access publishing ecosystem. This session will give a brief overview of who’s behind it, what the “plan” is, what the “S” actually means, and how it could affect us.
Friday 25th October, 12.30-13.30, Library Training Room
Come and play the Open Access board game to get a better understanding of what Open Access is and how it works. You are welcome as a team of up to 4 people or as an individual to join others.
Dandelion seeks new EDITORS to assist in the editing of the journal’s new volume. Current Birkbeck School of Arts Postgraduate Students are encouraged to join the Editorial Team for the academic year 2019/20. No publishing or editorial experience is necessary: you will learn editorial skills as you go. Although, if any, these will be a valuable asset.
Your research area should lie within, or across, the fields of: History of Art, Museum Cultures, Film, Media and Cultural Studies, English and Humanities, and Cultures and Languages. You can be at any stage in your research. We are looking for:
General Editors
Suitable for PhD students
General Editors will start the production of the new Volume in the Autumn Term of 2019 (or soon after), and will be responsible for the editorial supervision of the next Dandelion volume. They will be selecting the new theme and writing the Call for Papers, setting the timetable for the issue, commissioning articles, and sharing production management tasks.
Subject Editors
Suitable for MA or PhD students
Subject Editors will be required to edit and copyedit two or three articles (of between 1,500 and 8,000 words); the timing of this work will be confirmed by the appointed General Editors. You will be asked to attend two or three editorial meetings with the rest of the team. You will also be welcome to contribute to events planning, design, typesetting etc. Subject Editors are assigned to articles, and therefore advise contributors, according to their subject area expertise.
Find out more
The outgoing Editors will be happy to meet the new team to discuss the handover and for further advice. If you are interested then we would love to hear from you. Please send an email expressing your interest in either editorial role, and detailing any relevant experience you may have, by 11th October to mail@dandelionjournal.org. In your email please include details of which research programme you are enrolled in, and the research area you are focusing on. If you have any questions then please do get in touch – we will be happy to answer them.
The Access and Engagement Department sits
at the heart of Birkbeck’s commitment to improving the access and success of
non-traditional students in London. We work with groups who may otherwise feel
excluded from taking a step into higher education, including trade union
members without a formal qualification above level 4; FE and adult education
college students; forced migrants and those who have been out of education for
a number of years.
Birkbeck’s academic and research community can support our work in a range of ways, including:
delivering
free community lectures and/or learning activities;
running
workshops to support those facing organisational change at work;
helping
people to develop the skills they need to successfully navigate structural
inequality;
offering
insights into community priorities through
their research.
Find out more
To find out more and discuss possible collaborations, the Department is holding an Academic Open House event on Thursday 26th September from 3-5pm in Malet Street B02. The event is open to PhD candidates, Early Career Researchers and academics at Birkbeck. We will present further information about our work across London and our priorities for 2019/20, and there will be the opportunity for discussion with other academic colleagues and members of the Department.
To register your interest, please complete the following short form: https://bbk.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/open-house-register-of-interest For refreshments purposes it would be helpful to know how many are able to attend the Open House event, but even if you are unable to join us on the 26th, we’d still love to hear from you so please do complete the form so we can keep in touch about future opportunities.
CHASE Essentials training is available to all Arts and Humanities PhD students at Birkbeck, regardless of whether you they are funded by CHASE or not.
About this training
CHASE Essentials is a year-round programme of training and development workshops and residential programmes and is part of the training opportunities available to all arts and humanities doctoral researchers at CHASE institutions.
Arts and Humanities
PhD students at CHASE member institutions can apply for expenses using the form here (Word
document, best viewed on a laptop or desktop). Approval for the travel claim
must be sought in advance.
Mining Back: Data Skills for Researching Corporations and Governments
Saturday 14 September | 12:15-13:25 Goldsmiths, University of London | RHB 307
Dr. Anna Feigenbaum, Principal Academic in Digital Storytelling, Bournemouth University (designed with Tom Sanderson, The Centre for Investigative Journalism)
While corporations and governments gain more and more access to our data, ‘researching up’ or investigating governments and corporations is often riddled with obstacles. While the move in recent years toward open data has brought with it increased transparency and information access, not all information is equally available. Critical documents remain hidden behind paywalls, blocked by confidentiality agreements, or deemed too sensitive to be brought into public view. Even when Freedom of Information requests return results, they can come back worded in generalisations or dressed up in retractions.
These challenges prompt researchers and campaigners to employ creative methods for legally obtaining data from governments and corporations. In this workshop we bring together key strategies for investigative research, showcasing a range of data sources, as well as freely available and easy to access tools that can be used to ‘mine back’ or obtain and analyse data of government and corporate elites. Geared toward non-coders, qualitative researchers and those with limited budgets and resources, these strategies for ‘mining back’ include advanced searching techniques, data scraping from a webpage, liberating PDF tables, and creating visual power-maps.
This workshop will focus on the reproductive technologies industry in the UK, but most of the skills and resources we will introduce are adaptable across any research project engaged in investigating corporations or governments.
CHASE Latin for Medieval and Early Modernists 2019/20
Monday 4 – Friday 8 November 2019 & Monday 10 – Friday 14 June 2020 (plus two single day workshops – TBC)
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.
Residential week 1 will be held from Monday 4th to Friday 8th November 2019 and residential week 2 will be held from Monday 10th to Friday 14th June 2020, both at UEA. Two single-day workshops will take place in London between the residential weeks with dates TBC. Please note that accommodation for the residential weeks is booked in advance, and so if you subscribe to a residential week and are subsequently unable to attend it is important to notify us as soon as possible.
The skills developed in this course over the past two years have enabled CHASE researchers to pursue previously unavailable avenues of research, and besides structured language tuition we include classes on palaeography and archival research to ground our linguistic work in practice.
Although this course primarily teaches on classical Latin it will feature texts from a wide range of historical periods and is suitable for medievalists, early modernists, and scholars from any background whose research engages with the language.
