On Tuesday 7 March at 17.00 in the Clock Tower Lecture Theatre, School of Music and Fine Art, there will be a screening of pieces from the SoundImageSound International Festival of New Music. Robert Coburn, Conservatory of Music, University of the Pacific, will present the works and give a short pre-concert talk. This event is FREE to attend

From 2003 to 2014, the SoundImageSound International Festival of New Music and Visual Image presented annual performances of new works by composers and visual artists who merged sound and image in a form of inter/multi-media. Curated from an open call for works, SIS featured a widely diverse collection of styles and media from artists across all continents.

Robert Coburn
Influenced by minimal visual art and traditional Japanese music and theatre, composer, performer, and sound artist Robert Coburn merges minimal sound and silence in a perceptual experience of time and personal memory. His compositions often integrate field recordings with live performance and video. He was a founding member of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology and has created gallery installations and permanent soundworks as public art throughout the US.

Sent in by Jane Seaman

Tickets are now on sale for Kent Critical Law Society’s flagship conference themed this year on ‘Law in Times of Crisis.’

More than 40 panelists will be contributing their expertise over two days, on 18-19 March, including keynote speakers Dr Vicki Squire (Reader in International Security at Warwick) and Dr David Blake (Professor of Pension Economics at Cass Business School, City University London and Director of the Pensions Institute).

The student-led event is organised each year by committee members from Kent Critical Law Society (KCLS) and will be hosted in 2017 in Woolf College on Kent’s Canterbury campus. As well as providing undergraduate and postgraduate students an opportunity to network with academics and practitioners from across the UK, this year’s conference will explore the broader context within which legal responses to an increasing array of social, economic, political and environmental challenges emerge. Presenters and attendees will also critically explore the wider impact of contemporary problems on states, communities and citizens.

Where can I buy tickets?
Tickets for the conference are available to purchase online. Early bird tickets, priced at £5, cover attendance at both days (including lunch, snacks and drinks).

As a society, KCLS aims to interrogate the social, economic and political dimensions that shape legal doctrine and contemporary society. One of six student societies at Kent Law School, it provides a forum in which students, academics, practitioners and non-governmental organisations can come together to discuss and debate critical legal issues and research.

More information about KCLS is available on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The Faculty of Social Sciences is organising its annual Learning and Teaching Forum on Wednesday 8 March from 13.00 to 17.00 in Eliot College ELT2.

Through a series of presentations, the forum will be an opportunity to promote and encourage the development of strategic initiatives focused on learning & teaching across the University.

There will be a keynote presentation from Prof April McMahon, and a session including guest speakers from local schools.

Posters will also be displayed showcasing the projects and work that faculty teaching prize winners and Enhancement Fund awardees have completed – this will inspire and help others to develop new ideas.

List of sessions:
What’s next for Education and Student Experience at Kent?
Student Engagement vs. Employability: Squaring the circle?
Transitions
Approaches to Assessment and Feedback

The event is free and no registration is required.

For more information, please contact James Turpin, J.Turpin@kent.ac.uk

For this month’s pubTALK, Dr Harmonie Toros will be leading a discussion on ‘Negotiating with Terrorists: Is it ever an option?’

Join us from 19.00 (the talk starts at 19.30) on Monday 6 March at The Jolly Sailor for a great evening of drinks, discussions and debates!

Please see our website or Facebook event page  for more details and if you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch.

The University of Kent’s highly successful Summer Schools provide high-quality, postgraduate-level courses in areas ranging from architecture to politics and molecular biology to global business.

Open to current University of Kent students you can enhance your knowledge of your own subject area or choose to study something completely different to complement and gain skills to enhance your current degree. Students will also earn extra – curricular credit and employability points.

You study with academic staff whose passion for their subject is inspiring, with fellow students who share your interests, and have access to state-of-the-art equipment and first-class resources. Alongside subject expertise, you develop transferable skills and intercultural awareness, all of which are attractive to potential employers.

Taking a course, or courses, at Kent’s Summer School is a rewarding experience, and, for those considering postgraduate study at Kent, is a great opportunity to discover more about the University and a subject you are interested in.

There are tiered discounts available if you are taking more than one course and
you receive a discount of £150 if you book and pay in full by 5 May 2017.

We also have out European Summer Schools taking place at our specialist postgraduate centers in Paris and Brussels this year as well as our PHD school ‘Critical Theory’ in Paris.

For further information please visit our website or email us.

Dr Reshmi Dutta-Flanders, Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of English Language & Linguistics, will be presenting at the American Crime Fiction symposium in Chicago, organised by the American Literature Association, on 3-4 March 2017.

Reshmi’s talk is titled ‘Narrative technique in Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley’, and will be delivered on Saturday 4 March.

In crime fiction, although the crime precedes the investigation, in the course of narration, such events are not presented in a chronological order due to personal experiences that are embedded in the narrative. Hence, there is a situated focus created as the perpetrator is residing within an ‘inter diegesis’ space constructed for the purpose of illusion, delay or even distortion in the manner the story of crime is influenced by the story of personal circumstance.

Reshmi will use Partricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr Ripley subsequently adapted twice for cinema as the French Plein Soleil (1960) as well as the 1999 American adaption under the original name to analyse the linguistic dysfunctions used to evoke an intermediary space between narrative of the crime and narrative of the story.

For more details about the conference, please see the American Literature Association page here.

Dr Simon Kirchin, Reader in Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, has edited a new book entitled Reading Parfit: On What Matters (Routledge, 2017).

Derek Parfit was one of the world’s leading philosophers. His On What Matters was the most eagerly awaited book in philosophy for many years. Reading Parfit: On What Matters is an essential overview and assessment of volumes 1 and 2 of Parfit’s monumental work by a team of international contributors, and includes responses by Parfit himself. It discusses central features of Parfit’s book, including the structure and nature of reasons; the ideas underlying moral principles; Parfit’s discussions of consequentialism, contractualism and Kantian deontology; and his metaethical ideas and arguments.

Reading Parfit will be central reading for students of ethics and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of one of the most important works of philosophy published in the last 50 years.

For full details of the book, please see the publisher’s page here.

On Wednesday 8 March 2017, the Hub for Innovation and Enterprise (the institution’s support for student, staff, and alumni entrepreneurship and self-employment) will be hosting a Marketing in a Digital Age Conference.

The Marketing in a Digital Age Conference is for all students (and staff) who want to understand more about digital marketing for personal branding and start-up businesses.

With presentations from industry leaders on key trending topics, alongside updates on the basics, you will find out about tactics and best practice with examples of content marketing, email, mobile, social media, SEO and more. Find out more.

This event is kindly sponsored by the Kent Student Project Grant Scheme.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/marketing-in-a-digital-age-tickets-31535822494

Date: Wednesday 8 March 2017
Time: 12.00-13.00 arrival, lunch and networking | 13.00-16.00 Guest Speakers and Q&A’s
Location: Jennison Lecture Theatre

University Mental Health Day is an annual event that brings together all of the key players in student mental health.  This year we are focusing on the relationship between mental and physical health.

Come along to find out more about mental health and being active Thursday 2 March, 11.00-15.00 in the Pilkington Atrium, University of Kent, Medway

There will be stalls in Pilkington with the following attending:
Wellbeing team
Rethink, who will also be promoting the support group they run on campus
Let’s Play (with a chance to have a go with some boxing gloves and pads!)
Insight (psychological therapy providers)
Think Action (psychological therapy providers)
Chaplaincy
Medway Park leisure centre
Guided Walks
Sports Therapy Clinic information and 50% vouchers