5th November 2024. 3pm.
Online
SEASONAL CYCLICAL GATHERINGS, HOLDING SPACE FOR NATURE RECOVERY AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE.
The Critical Ecologies Lab would like to invite you to the first of our events for 2024-2025.
We will be meeting to discuss the introduction to Rebecca Solnit’s Hope In The Dark. Untold Mysteries. Wild Possibilities. We will also be outlining our plans for the rest of the year, and inviting your involvement.
Writing Landscape and Setting in the Anthropocene: Britain and Beyond
Editors: Philippa Holloway and Craig Jordan-Baker. Including contributions from Mark Brown, Martin Brown, Lisa Mansell, Mel Ebdon, Philippa Holloway, and many others.
The new book has been published by an international group of academics, including C3 members that focus on Stoke-on-Trent as a place. The book launch took place on 10/07/2024, and the recording will be linked soon.
This edited collection offers an in-depth exploration of the role of landscape and place as literary ‘settings’. It examines the multifaceted relationships between authors, narrators, and characters to their locales, as well as broader considerations of the significance of the representation of landscape in a world deeply affected by human interventions. Consisting of case studies of projects that engage with these questions, as well as research examining the theoretical underpinnings of both creative practices/processes and post-textual analysis of published works, this volume is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary in scope. In the context of the climate crisis and a pandemic which has caused us to re-evaluate the significance of landscape and the environment, it responds to the need to engage current trends within the academy and in broader social debate about our relationship to the natural world.
The books available from from Springer at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-49955-5 and from our Staffordshire University Library Catalogue from this LINK.
Led by one of our C3 Centre members, Agata Lulkowska, a new third season in the Rebellious Research Seminar Series (previously known as art/practice based-research seminar series) is now published and available to download and share.
It runs on a last Wednesday of each month starting in October, via MS Teams, at 3:30-5pm UK time.
More details and the programme can be found in the links below or the downloadable PDF.
https://www.agatalulkowska.com/seminar-series
https://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/c3centre/files/2023/09/Rebellious-Research-2023-2024-Seminar-Series-003.pdf
C3 Centre members will be presenting on various sessions at the upcoming Research, Innovation and Enterprise Conference on 24th and 24th of May 2023, this week.
It is still time to sign up for free at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/staffordshire-university-research-innovation-and-enterprise-conference-23-tickets-522644542897
Key events include a session on getting to know the C3 Centre, with a panel including:
And in a keynote slot, we also have members exploring the tensions between research, teaching, internationalization and regional impact.
Co-chairs:
And Panel Members:
We also have individual presentations from members, including
Registration is free at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/staffordshire-university-research-innovation-and-enterprise-conference-23-tickets-522644542897
The School of Digital, Technologies and Arts is again holding a series of seminars, chaired and curated by C3 member Becky Nunes, following a life-cycle of reserch: It will cover presentations by researchers about how projects start, how to work across teams, how to co-create research with external communities and in the second half of the season will moev to how research gets funded and reviwed.
Seminars are designed to be in person, but recordings will be available afterwards. Dates for the seminars are:
The recording from the first session of ‘Rebellious Research’ (Arts/practice-based research seminar series) is now available to watch online: ‘Tentacular thinking’ in Creative Practice Research as a Radical Intellectual Gesture by Agnieszka Piotrowska.
You can find the recordings from the last year’s edition of the series here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlngmRq1T-8&list=PLMUvev1_9LqMfwY4BBRR71vwa5YQaKxWw
‘Tentacular thinking’ in Creative Practice Research as a Radical Intellectual Gesture by
Agnieszka Piotrowska (Reader in Film, SODA, MMU & Professor, Film and Cultural Studies, The University of Gdańsk). Wednesday 26th October 2022, 15:30-17:00 (GMT)
In this talk, Agnieszka Piotrowska considere the notion of what ‘knowledge’ might be for a creative research practitioner and how ‘high theory’ might be of assistance in inspiring ideas and creative strategies. She will share her most recent experience of working across disciplines with the new experimental film Wash (2022). It is a hybrid documentary with element of animation and drama dealing with serious issues of development in Zimbabwe, a country in which she has done much work over the years. The piece of work has been funded by Strategic England Research 2021 and the University of Edinburgh.
Following the and popular first round of the Art/Practice-based research seminar series (and a Special Issue on Recontextualising Practice-based Research which followed), the seminar series, hosted by C3 Centre Agata Lulkowska, returns with a new title and some truly exquisite guests. As always, free and open to all (all sessions run online via MS Teams), this initiative aims at widening support and understanding around practice research in a friendly and inclusive manner, with some top experts sharing their experience and advice.
Staffordshire University’s Professor Neil Brownsword is presenting at the upcoming virtual event:
The Industrial Crafts Research Network’s two-day inaugural symposium,
Exhibiting Skill: Understanding, Documenting, and Communicating Skilled Practices of Historical Industrial Environments.
Registration for this symposium can be found here.
Poster and Programme downloadable here.
The seminar series, led by Agata Lulkowska, also has its own webpages at https://www.agatalulkowska.com/seminar-series
This seminar series aims at establishing a dynamic hub, where inspiring discussions, reading groups and presentations concerned with art/practice-based research, based in creative methods could flourish.
Additionally, this series is paired up with a Special Issue for the International Journal of Creative Media Research focusing on the debate around the current stage of Practice-based Research. For more details about the CFP please check the link.
Please email Agata.Lulkowska@staffs.ac.uk to book your place.
Session 1: What is practice-based research? – link to the recording
27th October | 15:30-17:00
This session will introduce the series, the formula, guests, and topics. It also initiates the discussion on the practicalities and nature of practice-based research. The session will attempt to answer the question of the scopes for practice-based research, what makes it different from regular research and purely creative practice. It will look at definitions, exceptions, expectations and a variety of potential outputs.
Speaker: Dr Agata Lulkowska
Core reading: Linda Candy, Practice-Based Research: A Guide, 2006, Creativity & Cognition
Studios, University of Sydney.
Case study: The act of killing (+ REF case study)
Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.
Session 2: Creative Process meets academic rigour
24th November | 15:30- 17:00
This session will explore the questions of the process – how do you approach creative methods in art/practice-based research? What are the priorities and how to maintain the right balance between creative freedom and academic rigour.
Guest speaker: Assoc. Prof Michael Branthwaite
Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.
Session 3: Creative methods
15th December | 15:30-17:00
This session explores the wide range of creative methods which could be applied to practice- based research. It reflects on the processes to choose the most relevant methodology, practical application of some, processes, and the implications.
Guest speaker: Nicole Brown, UCL
Nicole Brown (2019): Identity boxes: using materials and metaphors to elicit experiences, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, DOI: 10.1080/13645579.2019.1590894 Abhigyan Singh (2011) Visual artefacts as boundary objects in participatory
research paradigm, Journal of Visual Art Practice, 10:1, 35-50, DOI: 10.1386/jvap.10.1.35_1
Drawing on her understanding of and experience with Practice As Research as doing-thinking- being, Dr Nicole Brown presents on using objects and artefacts as creative methods for data collection and analysis. The presentation begins with an outline of methodological, practical and ethical reasons for the employment of object work and metaphorical representations before considering the research questions and foci best suited for these approaches. Nicole concludes with a consideration of the researcher’s role and responsibilities when engaging with participants, stakeholders and the wider scholarly community in Practice As Research.
Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.
Session 4: Transdisciplinary/post disciplinary
19th January | 15:30-17:00
Methodological quagmires in the post-disciplinary era.
Guest speaker: Prof. Carola Boehm
Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.
Session 5: Who is it for and how can we communicate it?
23rd February | 15:30-17:00
With the traditional publications still defining many academic careers, it becomes a challenging task for researchers working with practice-based methods. Luckily, the emergence of alternative platforms for dissemination makes this task more attainable and relevant to various non- conventional outputs. This session explores the possibilities and challenges of practice-based focused online journals and other platforms focusing on alternative forms of research based in creative methods.
Guest Speaker: Dr Charlie Tweed
Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.
Session 6: Research Assessment and Impact
30th March | 15:30-17:00
This session will look at research assessment in different contexts including the REF, research councils and academic awards. It will consider the particular challenges and opportunities for practice research within these contexts and how impactful practice research can be.
Guest speaker: Prof. Joanna Callaghan
Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.
Session 7: Moving image as research practice
27th April | 15:30-17:00 pm
This session looks into more details on film as a method for practice-based research.
Guest speakers: Paul Ottey and Assoc. Prof. Fiona Graham
Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.
Session 8: Reflective Practice
25th May | 15:30-17:00
Guest Speaker: TBC
Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.
Session 9: How do you prepare future practice-based researchers?
15th June | 15:30-17:00 pm
This session summarises all the series up to date, and reflects on the best way to train future practice-based researchers. It reflects on the qualities and skills needed for a successful researcher working with practical, creative methods and it hints at the possibility to develop a toolkit.
Speaker: Agata Lulkowska
Hosted by Carola Boehm, the International Society for Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education organising virtual social meets, where we come together and chat informally about topics around current challenges for Higher Education and for our Higher Education Futures.
Homepage is at https://pathes.org/pathes-online-social-meets-season-4/
SEASON THEME: Colonisation, Coloniality and Whiteness in the Academy
Led by Dr Thushari Welikala, St. George’s, University of London, UK & facilitated by Prof Carola Boehm, Staffordshire University, UK
Season 4 Online Social Meets focus on how the continuing processes of colonisation, coloniality and whiteness are being utilised by the geo-political Centres to create a particular type of ‘global’ higher education. Colonisation and coloniality are processes that perpetuate the hegemony and the supremacy of whiteness within higher education systems across contexts. Whiteness reflects a set of “narrative structural positions, rhetorical tropes and habits of perception” (Dyer, 1997, p. 12) that enable power structures to continue different forms of coloniality of knowing within higher education institutions, despite the absence of white bodies (Shahjahan and Edwards, 2021).
Audre Lorde (2007) identifies whiteness as a mythical norm that enforces the supremacy of whiteness over others’ life and thought, maintaining the core of white dominance brought on by colonization and enslavement. Whiteness, as the colonial superstructure (Quijano, 2000), operates within current higher education under the guise of global university rankings, globalisation, internationalisation and projects on decolonisation and inclusion, shaping our social and educational imaginary and futurity through colonial ontologies and epistemologies (Christian, 2019).
The global higher education magnifies white supremacy through racial neo-liberalisation, capitalism and competition, constructing particular values and beliefs about what is meant by learning, teaching and Being human. In question here is, how the often invisible and uncontested whiteness moulds the social- cultural and intellectual imaginaries within higher education and their impact on the process of maintaining and continuing the coloniality of knowing, supressing alternative ways of perceiving the world.
References
Christian, M. (2019). A Global Critical Race and Racism Framework: Racial Entanglements and Deep and Malleable Whiteness. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 2019, 5(2) 169–185
Dyer, R. (1997). White. Routledge.
Lorde, A. (2007). An Open Letter to Mary Daly, in Sister Outsider. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press, pp.57-62.
Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from South, 1(3), 533–580.
Shahjahan, R. A. and Edwards, K. T. (2021). Whiteness as futurity and globalization of higher education, Higher Education 10.1007/s10734-021-00702-x
For your time zone check on https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/
Friday 15/10/2021 4.30pm-5.30pm (BST, UK Time) LINK
Friday 22/10/2021 4.30pm-5.30pm (BST, UK Time)
Thursday (!) 28/10/2021 4.30pm-5.30pm (BST, UK Time)
Friday 05/11/2021 4.30pm-5.30pm (BST, UK Time)
Friday 12/11/2021 4.30pm-5.30pm (BST, UK Time)