Week 9: Learning Community Newsletter

Posted on 6 March 2023

All the latest from the department

We made it guys! Welcome to the last full week of lectures and seminars. For those of you doing dissertations - or even thinking of dissertation topics we are holding the dissertation poster session this Thursday (9th) from 12:00-14:00 in the Derwent Dining room. Come along to talk about some fascinating projects and cool research ideas.

The politics coffee morning is also on Tuesday from 9:30-11 in the Politics Reception area. It will be great to see you all and catch up.

Also this week's Shut up and Write will be on Tuesday (7th) 12-2pm in J/Q/004. Feel free to come along for a cup of coffee, some biscuits and a focused writing session. Louise Firth will also be running a Reference Management Software (Paperpile) Training session on Wednesday 8th March, 14.00-15.00 in AEW/105 open to all Politics Students.

John Evemy (Learning Community Officer)

Events

Critical Perspectives: Prevent and the Dangers of Counterterrorism

Tuesday March 7th

5pm,

AEW/003

Join Pol Soc for a panel discussion on the negative impacts of counterterrorism policing and policy. This event will provide critical perspectives on last Monday's event and will elaborate on the often damaging and harmful effects of programs, such as prevent. The panel will be a mixture of leading academics and students to blend the academic and the personal.

Ideology, Affect, and the Politics of Disavowal: Notes on Syria
Wednesday March 8th

11am-1pm,

D/N/056.

This talk is based on Prof Lisa Wedeen's book, Authoritarian Apprehensions: Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria (Chicago 2019). Drawing on extensive fieldwork and a variety of Syrian artistic practices, Prof Wedeen examines the way ideological investments sustain ambivalence towards autocratic political power. The talk will also explore some of the dynamics of civil war contention and ongoing activist visions of living otherwise.

Thinking Decolonially Through An Intersectional Lens
Wednesday March 8th

4.30pm,

Bowland Auditorium, Berrick Saul Building.

Avtar Brah (Professor Emerita in Sociology at Birkbeck) presents the inaugural Centre for Women's Study lecture on intersectional approaches to decolonisation. The presentation will address how coloniality/decoloniality analytical frames raise issues of borders and boundaries, and how questions of ethnicity, nationalism, national identity and belonging are central to conceptualising borders. Raising the question of how diasporas are created in the world and how the project of ‘politically Black feminism’ has been at the forefront of enacting decolonial politics. The presentation will conclude with a consideration of coalition politics which are centrally concerned with questions of equality, rights and justice.

Cheese and Wine Night with Alfred Moore

Thursday 9th March
18.30

D/N/056

This Thursday Pol Soc is doing a cheese and wine night with Alfred Moore. He will be discussing conspiracy theories and their impact of liberal democracy. It should be a fascinating topic. Cheese and wine is provided.