The School of English would like to congratulate Dr Caroline Rooney on being awarded a major grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): ‘Imagining the Common Ground – Utopian Thinking and the Overcoming of Resentment and Distrust’
This programme of leadership activities and research will address the over-arching Global Uncertainties strategic aim of ‘security for all in a changing world’ through engaging with the question of how this strategic aim is dependent on the capacity to imagine a common humanity and on the ability to deploy a certain utopian form of thinking. What will be explored is the role of prospective and projective thinking in advancing social justice and social cohesion, as well as its potential for impeding such.
The proposed programme of research will be carried out through a series of Global Uncertainties events (a conference and workshops) entailing public sector involvement, together with practice-based research in the form of creative projects, fieldwork and the setting up of networks. The first of the creative projects, to be carried out next year, consists of the making of a documentary film on post-conflict rehabilitation and trust-building in Beirut that will be of wider significance to the MENA region.
This programme will serve to foster collaborations between universities in the UK, the MENA region and Southern Africa, and it will be assisted by the appointment of an early career Research Associate, Dr Rita Sakr.
Well done Caroline!