Yearly Archives: 2018

Join KIE for Enterprise and Impact Training

The eighth annual Enterprise and Impact Training event will take place on Wednesday 25 April from 09.00 to 16.30, in the Darwin Boardroom, Canterbury campus.

This programme will give you the knowledge, confidence and practical tools necessary to engage successfully in enterprise activities such as consultancy and collaborative funding streams.

You will increase your potential to apply your expertise within industry, public sector and third sector organisations, and will learn about how enterprise and knowledge exchange activities can benefit your career.

The training, run by Kent Innovation & Enterprise (KIE) is recommended for academics and researchers, at any stage of their career, who would like to develop skills for enterprise activity and optimise their interactions with external organisations. It is also suitable for members of support staff that work at the interface between academia and external partners.

There are only 20 places available, so to reserve your place on training day please by following the booking link here. A light lunch is included.

EDA promotes careers in engineering at The Big Bang Fair

A team of students and staff from the School of Engineering and Digital Arts attended The Big Bang, the UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair, from 14-17 March 2018, the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) for young people in the UK.

EDA’s interactive stand equipped young people with the skills to create a Radio Frequency Identification tag, enabling them to add an integrated circuit and test the design. The activity draws on future Smart Manufacturing techniques where ink is used to make electronic circuits, meaning that future technologies can be made on the spot.

At the event, Team EDA engaged with 816 young people and interacted with 2.5 times more girls than boys, which is great news for inclusion in the sector and for future recruitment into engineering which was illustrated as a rewarding, interesting and creative career. By the fourth day, EDA’s exhibition stand had dealt with well over 1,000 participants and feedback from visitors suggests a keen interest in studying Engineering at the University of Kent.

Well done to all involved, particularly our student ambassadors in this important Year of Engineering.

Music and science come together in Colyer-Fergusson on 23 March

Live music and science come together this Friday (23 March), as the continuing Cellular Dynamics project explores links between choral music and cutting-edge research from the School of Biosciences.

Find out more and book.

The centrepiece of the concert is Ola Gjeilo’s colourful and popular ‘Sunrise Mass,’ performed by the University Cecilian Choir and String Sinfonia, which will be accompanied by live image- and video-projections curated by Dr Dan Lloyd. The hour-long performance is prefaced by short choral works by Whitacre, Stanford and Sir John Tavener, creating a meditative atmosphere in which to experience a range of film and photography drawn from the School of Bioscience’s latest research.

The performance starts at 19.30 in Colyer-Fergusson Hall; find out more about the Cellular Dynamics project online.

Image credit: School of Biosciences

Ahoy there! SMFA music students lead creative project on HMS Gannet

On 14 March SMFA music students worked with The Dockyard Development Trust and Kings Hill School to lead a creative music project on HMS Gannet in the Captain’s Cabin. They also had a tour of the ship.

Music Education students from Level 2 designed an interactive performance and composition workshop inspired by the Gannet, life at sea, sea shanties and film music inspired by the sea. The children learned some Pirate Metal, sea songs, took part in a musical “boat race”, and composed and performed their own pieces based on the sights and sounds of the day.

Says organiser, SMFA Lecturer in Music, Jackie Walduck , “The project is a fantastic opportunity for students to engage in the kinds of arts events taking place all over the UK, in which musicians work alongside museums, galleries, arts venues, orchestras, record labels or festivals to create accessible projects for members of the community.”

National Archives Accreditation awarded to Special Collections and Archives

Information Services’ Special Collections & Archives team are proud to have been awarded Archive Service Accreditation from the National Archive.

On Monday 19 March our accreditation was officially recognised by the National Archives’ Director of Public Engagement Caroline Ottaway-Searle and Sector Development Manager Hannah Jones.

This accreditation, from the UK Archive Service Accreditation Partnership is the UK quality standard which recognises good performance in all areas of archive service delivery. The standard looks at an organisation’s ability to develop, care for, and provide access to its collections, bringing the total number archive services achieving this to 104 nationwide.

‘We are delighted to have received accredited status from The National Archives, this is a fantastic achievement and recognition nationally for our service and teams delivering it. Achieving accredited status demonstrates that the University of Kent’s Special Collections and Archives met clearly defined national standards relating to management and resourcing, in the care of our unique collections and what the service offers to our entire range of users.’ Karen Brayshaw, Special Collections and Archives Manager, University of Kent.

The University of Kent’s Special Collections & Archives manage the University of Kent’s unique and distinctive collections so that they are preserved and accessible for the benefit of teaching, scholarship and society. Located in the Templeman Library on the Canterbury campus they collect, curate, and manage material which supports the University’s research and teaching.

The collections, numbering over 150, are open to everyone, whether for personal interest or academic research including these specialisms:

the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive and popular and comic performance from the Victorian era to the present, including pantomime, melodrama and variety works
the British Cartoon Archive and other cartoon artwork and publications, particularly satirical works
the history of the University of Kent and the local area
photographs, scrapbooks, engineer records, and published books relating to wind and watermills
collections of 20th century prose and poetry first editions.

This event is the first of a series, celebrating 50 years of the Templeman Library during Our Templeman Library Celebration Week 19-23 March

Gordon Lynch on the Catholic Church’s role in child migration

Following on from his research contribution to the Government’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), Gordon Lynch, Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology in the Department of Religious Studies, has contributed a piece to The Tablet website, the international weekly Catholic journal.

The article, entitled ‘Why Serious Questions about Catholic Child Migration Need Answers’, builds upon Gordon’s research into child migration in the first half of the twentieth century. In the piece, he argues that the Catholic Church failed to take sufficient care in protecting child migrants from abuse, even by standards of that time.

‘There is clearly a somewhat greater recognition in the Church of its failings now,’ Gordon concludes. ‘The question remains whether this will translate into further action in supporting or compensating former child migrants. Will it also lead to more open reflection by the Church about how it could have given theological and pastoral sanction to so damaging a policy, including making its archives about its own organisational policies more open to external scrutiny?’

To read the full article, please see the page here.

Strange Umbrellas: SMFA’s Dr Blanca Regina, Associate Lecturer in Event and Experience Design, performing in London on Tuesday 20 March

Strange Umbrellas, a platform for free improvised music and visual art, was started in 2012 by Dr Blanca Regina with musician Steve Beresford.

An artist, teacher and curator who is currently involved in creating mixed media performances, installations and film, Dr Regina is a visiting research fellow at University of the Arts London. Her research and practice encompass expanded cinema, free improvisation, moving image, photography and audiovisual performance. In 2010, she received a doctorate in Humanities from University Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, with the thesis The VJ and audiovisual performance: towards a radical aesthetic of postmodernism.

She is curator at the London-based Music Hackspace, Live Cinema Foundation and Strange Umbrellas. With Matthias Kispert she founded the Material Studies Group, developing a series of workshops and performances around the production of sound with everyday objects.

You can hear Dr Regina here as part of Unpredictable: Conversations with Improvisers – a collection of videos that have grown out of deep research into the nature of Free Improvisation, its history in the UK and its international connections. Research and filming began in 2011 and it was directed and produced by artist, curator and educator Blanca Regina in collaboration with Steve Beresford and Pierre Bouvier Patron. The series was commissioned by Sound and Music for the 50th anniversary of the British Music Collection.

Strange Umbrellas Number 19 will be on 20 March, in collaboration with CAFE OTO at 18-22 Ashwin St, London, Dalston E8 3DL. Doors at 7.30 pm, performances at 8 pm. Tickets £8 £6 ADVANCE £4 MEMBERS.

More info go to our web page.

Parliamentary Reception

EXCEPT Findings Dissemination – Social Exclusion of Youth In Europe: Cumulative Disadvantage, Coping Strategies, Effective Policies and Transfer

You are invited to attend a Parliamentary reception at Portcullis House, Houses of Parliament, to share the findings from the EU funded EXCEPT. The event will be hosted by Rosie Duffield MP and speakers include Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby from the University of Kent.

“Social Exclusion of Youth In Europe: Cumulative Disadvantage, Coping Strategies, Effective Policies and Transfer” (EXCEPT) is an innovative EU-funded research project which aims to develop effective policy initiatives to help young people in Europe overcome labour market insecurities and related risks. Our findings highlight the policies and strategies that do make a difference.

The event aims to advance the dialogue between policy makers, civil society and researchers to discuss new interventions for reducing exclusion in Europe. Exploring the youth stories and policy analysis, this seminar will involve policy and research experts from European and international institutions, who are at the forefront of policy analysis, innovation and implementation.

Edward Kanterian on Wittgenstein

Dr Edward Kanterian, Senior Lecturer in Department of Philosophy, will be giving an invited talk at a workshop entitled ‘Fallibilismus und Gewissheit ‘ [‘Fallibilism and Uncertainty’], at the Technische Universität Darmstadt [Darmstadt University of Technology], Germany, on 23 March 2018.

In his paper, entitled ‘Neue Perspektiven zu Wittgensteins Bemerkungen’ [‘New perspectives to Wittgenstein’s observations’], Edward will argue that the traditional epistemological distinction between indubitable (certain) and dubitable propositions needs to be refined in the light of Wittgenstein‘s last reflections on the relation between our mental states and our behaviour. He will show, there is a third category of propositions, i.e. about other minds, which are not indubitable, but also not dubitable in the sense that one can never ‘really’ know what another person feels, thinks etc.

For more details of the event, please see event page here.

Centre for Critical Thought – The Future of Work seminar series

Following rescheduling due to the ongoing UCU industrial action, we are very happy to announce the final schedule for the seminar series, The Future of Work. Details on speakers, titles and rooms can be found below.

All University staff and students are welcome to attend, and please feel free to distribute to any networks, lists or individuals you feel may be interested.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch (b.turner@kent.ac.uk) if you have any questions.

Thursday 22 March 2018, 17.00-19.00, RLT2
Valeria Graziano (Coventry University) and Kim Trogal (University of the Creative Arts, Canterbury): ‘On repair movements, domestic fantasies and antiwork politics?’
Wednesday 28 March 2018, 15.00-17.00, KS13
Dawn Lyon (Kent): ‘Making a future that counts: Young people’s narratives of working futures in a post-industrial landscape.’
Wednesday 9 May 2018, 15.00-17.00, W1-SR6
David Frayne (Cardiff University): ‘Capitalism and the Politics of Free-Time’
Wednesday 16 May 2018. 15.00-17.00, W1-SR6
David Bates (Canterbury Christ Church University): ‘Immaterial Labour, Exploitation and the Refusal of Work.’
Tuesday 22 May 2018, 17.00-19.00, RLT2
Annalise Murgia (University of Leeds): ‘Experiencing Precariousness in the Hybrid Areas of Work: The Case of Italy.’

Find out more at: https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/polir-news/files/2018/03/The-Future-of-Work-seminar-series.pdf