Thursday 18 December 2014

School of Arts and Media Graduate Week: Full programme


 

School of Arts and Media

Graduate Week Programme (2014/2015)

 

Monday 12 - Friday 16 January 2015

MediaCity Campus, 2nd Floor, Room 2.36

 

 

 
Dear Postgraduates,
 
Please find below the jam-packed programme for our Graduate Week, 2014/2015. Sessions cover all kinds of aspects of your PGR study, and after, as well as presentations from current PGRs. Please pick and choose as you like --- and please feel free to drop in and out of sessions; we like to keep the week informal!
 
Look forward to seeing you there ---
 
Dr Benjamin Halligan
Director of Postgraduate Research, College of Arts and Social Sciences
 

 

 

 

Monday 12th January

 

11.00-11.20 Introduction

Prof Karl Dayson, Associate Dean Research & Innovation

 

11.20 - 12.00: Prof Karl Dayson

Research Excellence Framework 2014, and the role of the Early Career Researcher

 

12.00-1.00 Library Workshop: Helen McEvoy

Introduction to your online and physical library services and resources

 

1.00-2.00 Lunch break

 

2.00-3.00: You’re Hired! Applying for Academic Jobs: Prof Seamus Simpson

and Dr Caroline Magennis

This session will discuss one element of the what next question - applying for academic jobs: When and where to look; how to construct an academic CV and online profile; how to make the most your academic experience and your PhD studies; what to look (out) for in job applications; how to survive job presentations and interviews and what academic departments and colleagues are really looking for.

 

3.00-3.45 Documentary Screening 1: "The Good Doctorate"

Planning to a distant deadline
How "life" can get in the way
Being realistic about time and cost
Working with your supervisor

 

3.45-4.30: PowerPoint and Presentations: Dr Benjamin Halligan

This session will consider the “do’s” and “don’t” of using PowerPoints, for PGR progression points as well as conference papers

 

4.30-5.30: Welcome for new postgraduate researchers

With Drs Michael Goddard and Benjamin Halligan, and PGR rep Will Carruthers

Informal welcome to new PGRs - getting to know the research environment, and each other.

 

 

Tuesday 13th January

 

11-12.00: Journal Rankings and Publications: Prof Karl Dayson

 

12.00-1.00 PhD Survival Guide: Dr Deborah Woodman

Deborah Woodman is a research administrator in the College of Arts & Social Sciences and has lectured in British history for the Universities of Huddersfield and Salford. Her PhD is on the public house in nineteenth century Manchester and Salford, graduating in 2011. Prior to her work at Salford she spent ten years at the University of Manchester, where she undertook a number of roles in research support.

This presentation will consider some of the issues that you may encounter when undertaking a PhD and how to deal with them. Whether full or part-time the PhD is different to anything else you will do, and you will face issues combining your research with employment, family, and life in general. You may have concerns with, for instance, finances, keeping your research on track and the pressure of meeting deadlines, presenting your first conference paper, and coping with a viva. The presentation will offer some practical advice that will help you cope with a whole range of issues that may arise during your studies.

 

1.00 - 2.00: Lunch

 

2.00-245: Documentary Screening 2: Good Supervision

How supervision is organised

What support to expect

How to get the feedback you need

How disciplines differ

 

2.45-4.00 Viva Survival Guide: Dr Benjamin Halligan

This session will deal in detail with the Viva: what to expect, how to prepare, how to defend your work, and the possible outcomes from the Viva.

 

4.00-5.00 Your Online Profile: Dr Cristina Archetti

This session will consider the importance of an online presence in terms of profile-raising, especially at the point of application for academic positions.

 

5.00-5.45: Making Use of Freedom of Information Requests (FOIs) for your research:

Dr Christopher J. Murphy

This session will offer a general introduction to FOIs, including key “do’s” and “don’ts”

 

 

Wednesday 14 January 2014

 

11.00-12.30: Guide to Progression Points: Dr Benjamin Halligan

This session will outline the nature of all progression points during the lifecycle of the PhD – from Learning Agreement to IE. We will look at the forms that are required for each, talk about the expectations of the panels that look at them, and offers tips for smooth and timely progress. (NB: This session relates specifically to Salford University progression points, and so is not relevant for guest from other universities).

 

12.30-1.30: Lunch break

 

2.30 - 5.00: Training in MCUK camera equipment

Session for those intending to use camera equipment as part of their research

 

 

Thursday 15th January

 

11.00-1.00 Practice-based Research: Dr Richard Talbot, Dr Scott Thurston,.

This session will consider methodologies for PGRs who are incorporating practice into their work. (NB: This session is specifically for those PGRs working in humanities subjects.)

 

1.00-2.00 Lunch break

 

2.00-2.45 Documentary Screening 3: "The Good Viva"

How to prepare
What to expect on the day
How to understand the outcome

 

2.45-4.00: Field Research and Discussion: Sharon Coen

Conducting and publishing content analytical work

Sharon Coen has research and teaching experience in the areas of social and media psychology. Her main interests concern the way media portray and respond to social and political issues, and how these in turn inform public perceptions of the same issues.

This session will take you through the key steps involved in successfully conducting and publishing content analytical work. Starting from the development of a testable research question to the selection and implementation of appropriate methodologies, the assessment of validity and reliability, data analysis and interpretation, we will discuss how to run and report content analytical work in an effective and meaningful way.

 

4.00-5.00 Impact Discussion: Dr Jo Creswell

Impact: Creating a new space in research.

• What is meant by ‘Impact’?

• What is the potential for impact in your research?

• How might the focus on impact help you to build networks, and reach more people through your research and support you in your career.

 

5.00-6.00: PGR presentations: 1) Alex McDonagh

Building a Digital Park: the digital recontextualisation of Towneley Park's heritage meanings.
Through interviews and personal visits to Towneley with park users this project has aimed to use a grounded theory approach to explore the meanings associated with a public park space. The collected data has been translated into a digital format in an attempt to create a digital retelling of the participants' park experiences. Through the analysis of this digital development process, I aim to explore the ways in which digital heritage may overcome, perpetuate or provide new social barriers to the expression of cultural heritage.


Alex McDonagh is a PhD researcher in the subject of Heritage Studies at the University of Salford. He is

currently exploring the effect of digital heritage interpretation in the context of natural or outdoor heritage at Towneley Park, Burnley. His research interests include heritage, digital heritage, simulations, phenomenology and archaeology.

 

2) Adam Hart and Lee Jones

Lee Jones & Laptop Ensemble: Collaborative Composition

My research examines the benefits of using alternative approaches to jazz composition through five musical elements: harmony, form, orchestration, improvisation and the role of the score. This presentation will focus on the boundaries that exist between live/recorded media and composition/improvisation through a practical demonstration and overview of the process.

 

 

Friday 16th January

 

11.00-12.00 Post Doc Funding Opportunities for New Researchers: Rob Morris

The session will look at the main opportunities for funding and how and when to apply for them and talk about career development for those wanting to develop a career in research in academia.

Robert Morris from the Research and Enterprise Division has worked in Research Management and Support for over 14 years at the University of Salford and has supported many bids into the UK research Councils, European Union and various trusts and charities.

 

12.00-1.00 From Conference Participation to Publication: Dr Michael Goddard

This session will examine one of the most productive and straightforward ways of publishing your research--via conference participation. Many academic conferences have specific publication outcomes (sometimes already mentioned in the call for papers), and even when they don't there are frequently opportunities for disseminating and publishing your work that emerge from conference participation. This session will cover such issues as selecting the best conference to present your work (subject specific, postgraduate or not, connected to an association), preparing conference abstracts, conference networking, conference organisation, revising your abstract for publication, and the publication process. As it is impossible to generalise, a range of examples will be presented but there will also be the opportunity to present your own experiences and issues regarding both conference participation and the publication process.

 

1.00- 1.30: Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP): Janet Morana (Partnerships

Manager)

KTP is one of the UK's leading recruiters - If you want to apply your qualification, start a ‘real’ job straight away and gain a professional qualification, then a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) is what you’re looking for. You should be inquisitive, bright and serious about getting ahead.

 

1.30-2.30 Lunch Break

 

2.30-3.30 Screening 4: “The UK Doctorate”

Critical thinking
Independent working
The upgrade process
Culture clashes

 

3.30-4.30: Research Excellence Framework 2020: Prof Karl Dayson

This session considers the results of the 2014 UK-wide assessment of research, and looks forward to the next assessment period (2014-2019). What are the emergent trends for the coming 5 years? How can a PGR begin to plan for entry into the 2020 assessment, and so enhance employment prospects, in terms of publications, profile and impact?

 

4.30-5.00: PGR Presentation: Juan Hiriart

Zooming In and Out of History: Using Games as Facilitators for Micro-macro Historical Thinking and Understanding

Micro-history and Macro-history have both evolved as separate traditions, each of them leading to different means to deal with size, closeness and distance in historical understanding. In spite of the differences, several authors have stressed the importance of making connections between these two separate epistemologies, and to generate meaningful links between the narratives of ordinary people and the general structures and patterns of history. In this presentation, I would like to show an exploration of how digital game technologies and procedural simulations can be implemented and used as a mean to facilitate this type of encounters. In order to get a better understanding of this design problem, a game prototype is being developed. One of the main goals of this prototype is to allow players to navigate between different points of perception and interaction, using gameplay mechanics as a way to foster historical thinking and understanding.

 

5.00-5.30: Open discussion: What does it mean to be a PhD student?

            Chair: TBA

 

5.30: Refreshments (Dock Bar)

 

Wednesday 3 December 2014

GradProg talks, Weds 10/12: "Beyond the Utopia Moment" / "Post-Conflict Culture"

Arts & Media Graduate Programme: 

 

Transforming Us - Beyond the Utopian Moment

Wednesday 10 December 2014 3.30pm - 4.20pm
Venue: Room 2.20, MediaCityUK
Event Type: Arts; Public Lectures
After looking at the ways in which experiential participatory theatre opens up the potential for transformative moments of performance, I became interested in two things: first the language we use to talk about the transformative in performance and second, the way processes of transformation actually work and how the experiences we are able to generate in an artistic context map on to wider personal and sociopolitical change. This talk will discuss the practice based research I have been working on with choreographer Medie Megas over the past year and a half, which explores this on a formal level, through textual and movement based experiments with repetition and transformation.  In our work we refer to these contrasting experiences of transformation as closed or open systems where the closed system of transformation moves between two well defined points and the open begins from a fixed point and works outwards from it. This model acts as a frame for the practical research tasks and processes during the research phase and more recently, the creative approach to improvisation and devising we have taken in making Transforming Me: a Bilingual Solo, Medie’s solo performance at the Mir Festival in November. In terms of theoretical framing, the practice we have done brings into question the focus in performance research on the notion of the transformative as a bounded moment. I draw on Griselda Pollock and Bracha Ettinger in this presentation to explore how the sharing of intense emotional experience, an ‘encounter’ within a liminal space can open up an enduring experience of trans-subjective transformation and how stasis, duration, repetition and latency form a part of that.

Dr Kate Adams (University of Salford): http://www.salford.ac.uk/arts-media/arts-media-academics/kate-adams



Beyond the Past: Theoretical approaches to ‘post’-conflict culture

Wednesday 10 December 2014 4.30pm - 5.30pm
Venue: Room 2.20, MediaCityUK
Event Type: Arts; Conferences; Public Lectures
Dr Magennis is a Lecturer in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature at the University of Salford. She is a specialist in modern and contemporary literature, with particular intellectual interests in contemporary fiction, Irish literature, Northern Irish cultural production and critical theory. She is the author of Sons of Ulster: Masculinities and the Contemporary Northern Irish Novel. She sits on the Executive Council for the British Association for Irish Studies and on the Editorial Advisory Board for the Irish Studies Review.
This paper seeks to complicate the ways in which trauma theory has been readily applied to post-conflict literature and culture, with a focus on Northern Ireland. It will examine the ways in which discourses of conflict resolution can be complicated by attitudes to narrative and memory in contemporary fiction and the ways in which theoretical work on grief, affect and hope can be productively used to discuss these texts. The aim is to explain the broad theoretical basis for my current work on the Northern Irish novel, so as to start conversations with colleagues and post-graduate students engaged in work around memory, history and culture.