Category: BGRS training/ event announcements

New highlighted CHASE training opportunities for Arts and Humanities students at Birkbeck

Scholarly Editing Unpacked

17 November 2017, 10.30-18.30, followed by drinks reception

Keynes room (114) Birkbeck, University of London

While most of us acknowledge that scholarly editing underpins a wide range of our literary research many of us know very little about its processes. Editing can seem arcane, and something that happens only in specialist domains. The environments in which editing takes place, however, are quickly changing. Digital innovation is transforming text and object, making questions of textual manipulation and presentation newly urgent.

This day-long workshop brings together leading scholars to explore why editing matters and to exchange and develop practical advice and experience. It will challenge preconceptions of the relative unimportance or invisibility of scholarly editorial skills, and will equip its delegates with nomenclature and a roadmap for navigating the field.

Whether you are embarking on an editorial project, harbouring thoughts of doing so in the future, or are simply keen to know more – and to know more accurately – about the literary objects you study this workshop will be of value and use.

Bursaries are available for students at CHASE institutions.

Read the full programme here

On the Social in Architecture

24 November, 9 March & 21 June

ICA, London

These three CHASE training days, co-organised by the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the ASSC (Architecture, Space and Society Centre, Birkbeck) will collaboratively consider a question fundamental to PhD students in architecture and other disciplines, particularly in relation to public institutions, social housing, and resettlement: ‘What is the social in architecture?’

Each training day will be comprised of a participatory training/skills session and a more public presentation of exemplary work in this area. Students will be expected to take on active roles in chairing discussions, acting as discussants, recording events, conducting and transcribing interviews, writing posts for the ICA/CHASE blogs, and thinking about the ethical, political and social structures in which their own research is situated.

Besides architecture and urban planning, the sessions will touch upon themes of ethics and equality, cultural geography, environmental psychology and performativity, community practice and documentary film or photography.

The aim is for these sessions to be generative events, shaping new ways of working together and involving different perspectives and stakeholders in the nature of the public institution/space.

Read full programme here

Upcoming Birkbeck Wellcome ISSF Deadline (31 October)

Birkbeck has a Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF) which provides opportunities for PhD researchers whose work falls under the broad remit of the Wellcome Trust:

  • Biomedical research
  • Medical humanities
  • Medical social sciences

The next deadline for Birkbeck Wellcome Trust ISSF applications is 31 October.

Opportunities for Birkbeck PhD students could include the following:

  • If you are a PhD researcher completing your thesis can apply for funding to enable you to complete publications or develop public engagement or dissemination activities. The funding covers salary costs up to six months beyond the end of your formal period of study (on the starting point of the Researcher 1 pay scale).
  • If you are a current PhD researcher you can apply for funding of up to £5,000 to carry out public engagement or interdisciplinary activities for a period of up to three months. Please note: this period will represent a formal break in your studies, if your PhD funder allows it.

For further information about the ISSF awards and for details of how to apply please view the ISSF website.

No Trespassing: The Risks and Rewards of Interdisciplinary Research

On Saturday 4 November there is an opportunity to take part in this workshop exploring the risks and rewards of interdisciplinary research.

The workshop will bring together postgraduate research students: to get practical advice on the importance of interdisciplinarity for some categories of research funding; to discuss their research in relation to different disciplines; and to have an opportunity to build new intellectual networks with postgraduate researchers from across the College.

This half-day workshop will primarily be taught by colleagues from across the School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy (SSHP), thus bringing together a range of disciplinary expertise and perspectives. Sessions will focus on:

  • how scholars working in different intellectual traditions formulate research questions
  • the importance of interdisciplinarity for research funding
  • and the challenges of collaborating across disciplines.

The workshop is primarily targeted at postgraduate researchers in SSHP and other Schools within the College.

Register to attend

You can register to attend here.

Language Teaching in Higher Education Training Course announced

The Department of Applied Linguistics and Communication is offering PhD students the chance to participate in a Language Teaching in Higher Education Training Course. Funding was awarded following a successful BGRS Generic Skills training application.

Objectives

The aim of this course is to provide PhD students with a foundation and training for foreign language teaching at university. The first part of the course will cover the foundations of language teaching and will combine mini lectures, discussions, reflection activities, microteaching practice and presentations. Students will be required to complete readings and other tasks. The second part of the course will provide an introduction to teaching English for Academic Purposes, and will include workshops, lesson observations and, for a limited number of students, an opportunity for teaching practice on courses under the guidance of a mentor.

Who is this course for?

The course is primarily aimed at PhD students in linguistics and language- and education-related subjects, but is open to all research students studying at Birkbeck. Research students in linguistics and language- and education-related subjects from other universities in the Bloomsbury area are also eligible to apply. No prior teaching experience is required. This course is open to all postgraduate researchers but recommended for those in their 2nd year or later.

Course leaders

The course will be led by Dr Tom Morton, an expert on foreign language teaching methodology and an experienced teacher trainer, and Melanie Ferreira, a specialist for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and an experienced EAP teacher.

Format and requirements

  • The course will take place between 10.00 – 17.00 on the following dates. Students who are offered a place are expected to attend all sessions: 25 November, 16 December, 13 January and 27 January.
  • Lesson observations and teaching practice will be held in February and March (timetable to be confirmed).
  • Maximum number of participants: 20 students. If there are more applications, priority will be given to students who can take part in all training sessions.
  • Places on the teaching practice part of the programme will be limited, depending on availability of classes.
  • Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

How to apply

If you would like to attend please complete this application form and return it to linguistics@bbk.ac.uk by 10 November 2017.

Notification of acceptance on the course: week beginning 13 November 2017 

Highlighted CHASE training opportunities for Arts and Humanities students at Birkbeck

The following CHASE training opportunities are now open to all Arts and Humanities students at Birkbeck.

Transmissions

From 6 October | Goldsmiths, University of London

Running over the course of three years, this series of events will offer specific training in artistic and creative research in the areas of Fine Art, Art-Writing, Performance and Poetry. A requirement of research, generally speaking, is that it ‘form a distinct contribution to knowledge’. Within artistic and creative research, specifically, this is coupled with a further requirement to develop the very form whereby such a contribution can be made. In this respect, artistic and creative research complicates the basic criterion for academic research – by extension, raising philosophical questions around knowledge and judgement – through a specific emphasis on communicability.

Deadline to apply – 29 September
Find out more and register

Women of Colour Index (WOCI) Reading Group – Intercultural and Intersectional Skills Training for Practice Research in the Arts

Beginning Wednesday 1 November
Women’s Art Library, Goldsmiths, University of London

A series of five sessions that aims to create a forum for responding to the legacy of women artists of colour, to improve the visibility of these artists, and also to create a self-reflexive space for researchers to acknowledge their own relationships to race, class, gender and sexuality and through critical frameworks, which is key to our research strategy.
Find out more and register

Object Literacy – Research through Epigraphy and Inscriptions in Chinese Art History

3 Workshops: 18 December and 2 further dates in March and mid May 2018

SOAS, University of London and Victoria & Albert Museum

The aim of this training is to build the capacity of participants to employ inscriptions on objects of art and material culture as historical evidence, through a rich introduction to epigraphy—specifically, to the historical framework for the addition, positioning and textual content of inscriptions as well as appraisal of the significance of stylistic references and graphic modes employed.
Find out more and register

Researching interculturally: Conceptual and methodological issues

Friday 24 November | October Gallery, Central London (map)

Research is very often an intercultural encounter. For students and scholars of Arts and Humanities subjects, researching interculturally requires a critical and creative understanding of the contested concept of culture, the ‘inter-’ aspects of cultural encounters and researchers’ own positions.  This workshop will focus on the core conceptual and methodological issues of researching interculturally and is designed to create a space for thinking through and about interculturality both critically and creatively.

The workshop consists of four parts:

  • Thinking interculturally through art;
  • A conversation with a panel of speakers from a range of fields such as sociology, art education, applied linguistics, language and intercultural studies and literature and culture;
  • Group discussion;
  • Discussion and summary.

The workshop is coordinated by

  • Professor Zhu Hua (Birkbeck, University of London)
  • Dr Bojana Petric (Birkbeck, University of London)
  • Dr Alessia Cogo (Goldsmiths, University of London)
  • Professor Maria Roth-Lauret (University of Sussex).