Yearly Archives: 2015

Students at PC

Seminar on news coverage of social movements

Laura Garcia Rodriguez Blancas, PhD student in the Centre for Journalism, will present a seminar on ‘Mainstream News Coverage of Social movements: beyond protests and demonstrations’, on 17 February at 1 pm on Medway campus.

Laura’s research is based on how journalists cover and interact with social movements and activist. In the research seminar, she will explore the idea of how the news agenda that drives mainstream media as well as other newsroom factors frame, and sometimes limit, their coverage of social movements. Her case-studies will include bloggers who write on or for social movements and are used as sources by mainstream journalists.

The seminar will take place in G1-04, Gillingham Building, Medway campus. All are welcome. Further information is available on the University Event Calendar.

Dr Omar Nasim on BBC Radio 3

Dr Omar Nasim from the School of History is contributing an essay to BBC Radio 3 ‘s The Essay: The Five Photograph that (You didn’t know) change everything on Tuesday 17 February at 10:45 pm.

An expert in 19th and early 20th century history, Dr Nasim will be discussing the Nebula in Orion as well as how a photo of space changed our view of the universe and place within it.

In his essay, Dr Nasim will tell the story of how the first pictures of a nebula taken by Henry Draper in 1880 raised questions about the very origins of humanity.

Further information is available on the BBC website.

Sixth formers to participate in philosophy conference

A-Level students from a number of schools in the Kent region are expected on campus next week to attend our Philosophy Sixth-Form Conference, on Wednesday 11 February 2015. Staff from the Department of Philosophy will be delivering sessions to give a taster for studying these subjects at a university level.

A mixture of seminars and plenary sessions are offered throughout the day, including such tempting titles as ‘Do We Want a Way Out of Plato’s Cave?’, ‘Should the Law Allow Voluntary Euthanasia?’, ‘Sartre and Freedom’, ‘Fate and the Future’, and ‘Should Healthy People Be Offered Medical Enhancements?’ The day will run from 10.00am until the afternoon, with lunch and a campus tour provided.

Participating members of the Department include Dr Kathy Butterworth, Dr Graeme Forbes, Dr Kelli Rudoph, as well as doctoral students Ruth Hibbert and Alex Trofimov. The conference will be introduced by the Head of Department, Dr Julia Tanney.

The programme of events is listed below. If you would like further information on participating, please email Mary Daly.  Full details can be found on the Department of Philosophy website.

University call to match Schools’ expertise with Government funding – 8 Great Technologies

Big Data Challenges, Thursday 23rd April 2015, 9.30am to 4.30pm Grimond Building, Canterbury Campus.

Kent Innovation & Enterprise (KIE) is working with a number of academic and research groups to identify expertise within Synthetic Biology, Advanced Materials & Big Data, three of the 8 Great Technologies. A website will be launched shortly to enable you to express your interest in one or more of these areas.

This initial research will enable the University to respond swiftly to future funding opportunities by mapping internal expertise, external industry engagement and previous funding applications.

Big Data is already gaining momentum through the work of Eerke Boiten who heads up the Cyber Security Centre and Professor Andy Fearne who recently obtained an ESRC grant as part of the Eastern Arc Consortium. We are already capturing a lot of information about this area following an initial meeting in Medway last year.

We have also formed a mailing list for those wishing to be kept up to date on developments, big-data@kent.ac.uk.

In order to keep momentum we will be holding an open meeting for academics with an interest in this area. If you want to register for the event or would like to find out more about the 8 Great Technologies please email enterprise or phone 01227 827376.

Jessica Frazier on ‘In Our Time’, Radio 4

Dr Jessica Frazier, from the Department of Religious Studies, participated in the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘In Our Time’, hosted by presenter Melvyn Bragg.

The programme focused on Ashoka the Great, Emperor of India. Ashoka conquered almost all of the landmass covered by modern-day India, creating the largest empire South Asia had ever known. After his campaign of conquest he converted to Buddhism, and spread the religion throughout his domain. Jessica, an expert in themes in Hinduism and religious philosophies, participated in the programme with Dr Naomi Appleton (University of Edinburgh) and Richard Gombrich (Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies).

This is the third time Jessica has appeared on Radio 4 this year, with her recently contributing to the programmes A History of Ideas and Jessica Frazier on Creation Myths.

You can listen to the programme on the BBC’s iPlayer.

Students share stories with Canterbury’s senior citizens

Ten volunteers spent a Friday afternoon at the Age UK day centre chatting to Canterbury’s senior citizens.

The volunteers, who study at the University of Kent, took time out of their studies to share stories with the local residents using the centre, as part of a programme of volunteering opportunities organised by Kent Union – the Students’ Union.

Friendships are beginning to develop between the students and senior citizens as the trips to the centre become more frequent, with more and more volunteers willing to give up their free time to spend it with those who need company the most.

Kent Union Volunteer Hannah Sherbrock-Cox said: “I had such a lovely time at Age UK- it was so much fun to have a good old natter with some lovely ladies and learn all their nuggets of wisdom they have gained in their lives.”

The next visit to Age UK Canterbury will take place on Friday 13th March, if you would like to get involved please email volunteering.

Vice-Chancellor’s Esteem Lecture

The next Vice-Chancellor’s Esteem Lecture on Indian Ocean Journeys will take place on Wednesday 11 February at 6pm in Grimond Lecture Theatre 1.

Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah’s lecture will re-imagine the Indian Ocean as cosmopolitan site which preceded and survived colonialism rather than another chapter in the grinding and inevitable consolidation of European power.

The Indian Ocean as open waters rather than closed in by a southern land-mass. Fra Mauro was a Venetian monk who lived on the island of Murano in the Venice Lagoon and who studied a variety of Arab, Indian and European sources from which he constructed a map of the world. There are many remarkable matters concerning the map, its construction, its history and the detailed information it managed to pack into the tiny banners that decorated its empty spaces, but what makes it an appropriate starting point for this discussion was its representation of the Indian Ocean as so thoroughly knowable and interlinked, as a world connected and enriched by travel and by stories.

This way of thinking of the site contrasts with the more familiar narrative of a mythologised terrain into which erupt rapacious Europeans breaking out of medieval wars towards the fulfilment of their capital-driven destiny.

 

Passion at lunchtime: Tangos by Piazzolla

If you’re looking for a little passion at lunchtime, then you can’t do better than to come to the first of this term’s Lunchtime Concerts on Weds 11 February – four internationally-acclaimed musicians will unfurl the intoxicating world of the tango in music by Astor Piazzolla.

The concert begins at 1.10pm in the Colyer-Fergusson Hall; admission is free, with a suggested donation of £3: more details can be found at the Music at Kent website. 

Come and be swept up in the arms of tango supremo, Piazzolla, by these four remarkable musicians…

Lecture theatre

Visiting artists talks

The School of Music and Fine Art would like to invite you to the forthcoming series of Visiting Artists Talks:

  • Thursday 12 Feb: Sally O’Reilly Artist: Writing and performance. Current projects include a novel, ‘Crude’, about public speaking, sensuality and the oil industry, and the libretto for ‘The Virtues of Things’, an opera, commissioned by Aldeburgh Music, Opera North and the Royal Opera House
  • Thursday 19 Feb: Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin Artists: Photography. Deutsche Börse photography prize winners, 2013
  • Thursday 26 Feb: Jeremy Deller Artist: Multi-media. Turner Prize Winner, 2004. Represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, 2013
  • Thursday 5 March:  Matthew Darbyshire Artist: Sculpture. Provocatively repackages the homogenisation of contemporary design that dominate both public and private space
  • Thursday 12th March:  Anne Tallentire Artist: Multi-media. Explores the politics of location, displacement and languages of the everyday, to question specific economic, geographic, social and cultural constituents of daily life. Professor of Fine Art, Central Saint Martins
  • Thursday 19 March: Sally Tallant Curator. Director of Liverpool Biennial – The UK Biennial of International Contemporary Art
  • Thursday 26 March: David Burrows Artist: Multi-media. Exploring notions and concepts of the new in avant garde, utopian, sacred and mass media cultures
  • Thursday 9th April: TBC
  • Thursday 21st May:  Sonia Boyce Artist: Multi-media. MBE. Professor at Middlesex University and Professor of Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London

All of these talks will take place from 17.30 to 18.30 in the Clock Tower Building Lecture Theatre, Chatham Historic Dockyard at the University’s Medway campus.

All are welcome and entry is free,

Templeman Library wayfinding and signage: survey and workshop

As part of the Templeman Library development Information Services is seeking to review and enhance wayfinding and signage across the building, improving the student experience by providing easy access to the Library’s services, resources and facilities.

Share your views on Library wayfinding and signage by completing our online questionnaire, or sign up for our workshop for a more in-depth discussion about how you find services, resources and facilities and how you navigate around the building.

Online survey

Workshop

  • Come to our Wayfinding and Signage workshop 1 – 2pm, Monday 9 February, Training Room TR302, Templeman Library Refreshments will be provided.

Sign up for the workshop by emailing IS publishing.