Gregynog Ideas Lab VII Summer School
8-13 July 2018
Gregynog Hall, Newtown, Powys, Mid Wales, UK
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Gregynog Ideas Lab is a
unique opportunity for graduate students and academics engaged in work in
international politics from a range of critical, postcolonial, feminist,
post-structural and psychoanalytic traditions to re-examine their work and meet
others engaged in similar areas. It is located within the broad realm of
international politics, critical methods and various interdisciplinary
approaches. You can have a look at last year's program to get a sense of the
diversity of some of the programmes and subjects discussed here.
This year Gregynog Ideas
Lab VII welcomes back the following guest professors from previous years:
Andrew Davison, Jenny Edkins, Himadeep Muppidi, Erzsebet Strausz, Rob (R.B.J.)
Walker and Andreja Zevnik. There are more to come!
In addition this year we
will invite a couple of new professors to join us at Gregynog for a few days.
We introduce this format last year when we invited Martin Coward, Yvonne
Rinkhart and Andrew Russell. The format worked very well hence we decided to
continue with it this year.
The Gregynog Ideas Lab VI
Summer School offers:
- a wide range of
seminars, workshops, one-on-one activities and consultations offered by leading
scholars and creative practitioners
- new opportunities to
present and discuss your work
- constructive feedback
on your research
- discussion sessions and
other events focused on critical pedagogy
- problem oriented panels
and discussion groups (i.e. on publishing, fieldwork etc)
- a friendly and engaged
“network” of students, academics, and artists
The Gregynog Ideas Lab is
a residential summer school situated in the beautiful grounds of Gregynog Hall,
Newtown, Powys, Mid Wales. Please note that places are limited (30) and allocated
on a first come first served basis. Thus we would advise you to consult our
booking options (see our blogspot or booking form) and book fast. The
registration fee covers your stay in Gregynog (5 days, full board), academic
programmes and various other activities planned for the duration of the event.
The only other expense you will have to cover is your travel to Gregynog.
If you have any questions
about the summer school and the bookings, please get in touch with us (Andreja
or Erzsebet) on gregynogideaslab@gmail.com.
Also feel free to email Muriel at muriel.bruttin@unil.ch if you would like to
hear more about the participants’ experience. Muriel has been a participant to
the past two editions and would be happy to share more of her experience.
What is
unique about Gregynog?
One of the strengths and
mains sources of inspiration of the Ideas Lab is its international cohort of
students and academics, providing a network of critical scholars who work on
various facets of international politics. For students and junior faculty, sometimes
being in the “critical” stream of your discipline means you might feel a bit
alone at your institution. At Gregynog, you will meet other critically-minded
people from across various institutions and geographic locations (such as the
UK, USA, Sweden, Brazil, Switzerland, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Germany,
Czech Republic, Romania, Slovenia, Hungary and many more). Every year the Ideas
Lab brings together a group of people with whom you can establish lasting
connections. You are likely to meet them again at workshops and conferences,
making the ‘academic’ experience possibly less alienating and certainly more
fun, which can help us re-engage with the purpose and potential of academic
work and strengthen a sense of community.
Prospective
PhD students would
further benefit from developing a ‘taste’ of PhD life and research. You can ask
participants or professors concrete questions about their institutions, the
particularities of their PhD programs, research cultures and departmental
atmospheres, and of course find out about funding and other opportunities.
For PhD
students at all levels the Ideas
Lab offers a platform to build a strong and lasting network that can accompany
you on your PhD journey and open some doors later on in your career. The
friendly and encouraging milieu of the summer school allows you to test your
ideas, discover new research trajectories, resolve some of your PhD dilemmas,
overcome writer’s block and what may appear to be the ‘irresolvable’ challenges
of your research..
For PhD students
who are close to finishing this
could be a productive (yet relaxing and inspiring) time to fine-tune their
dissertation work and get an insight into the field of academia, learn of any
upcoming positions and receive one-to-one advice on job applications.
For early
career academics
Gregynog provides a stimulating environment where you can think, write, engage
in discussions with like-minded peers and even start new collaborations. Our
guest professors are happy to discuss matters relating to publishing and career
development, and whatever might be important and relevant for you at your
career stage.
What to
expect at Gregynog?
The wide range of
seminars, workshops, participant presentations and events are truly unique and
intellectually stimulating. The various seminar streams offer the possibility
for in-depth discussions of particular subject matters that change every year:
last year, for example, seminar topics included feminist security studies,
aesthetics and visuality in international politics, psychoanalysis and
subjecthood, or critical pedagogy. In addition, Gregynog is committed to
encouraging and showcasing alternative ways of engaging with international
politics. For example, in the previous years the summer school hosted various
performance pieces – such as a drag performance by Catherine Charrett (Queen
Mary University London) on EU-Hamas relations, which was part of her PhD
project, and a performed essay about academic debates on pornography by Lea
Aigner, former MA student in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television
Studies at Aberystwyth. In the spirit of critical pedagogy, last year’s
programme included the installation of an experimental learning space by Conor
Heaney (Kent), Phil Gaydon (Warwick) and Erzsebet Strausz (Warwick), and at
other occasions invited artists – such as Dolly Kershaw
- joined us for special events. In this sense the Ideas Lab works as a ‘lab’
for participatory, innovative and transdisciplinary engagement with new and old
ideas, and in this way, it seeks to open up different ways of approaching
questions about international politics and its articulations. These special
events tie in well with the workshop on storytelling and ongoing conversations
about alternative ways of “writing”, which ask participants to consider how
storytelling might be used in international politics, not only as source
material, but also as a different way of doing, embodying and writing politics.
Want to
know more about what participants say?
As Muriel writes,
‘For me, one of the key
benefits of ‘Gregynog’ as a summer school is that it offers the opportunity for
solid and constructive feedback. If you present during “participant
presentation,” you will get a roomful of people who will give you thoughtful
feedback and criticism, rather than the scant few questions that tend to come
out of more traditional conference settings. In the words of one participant
last year, the responses from the presentation was “feedback and a half.” Guest
Professor surgeries also allow for in-depth discussion of projects, which I
have been finding very helpful. They are akin to US office hours, where the GPs
sit each at a table, and the participants can come to ask any sort of question.
These questions can be extremely specific (‘How do I deal with the scenography
of objects in an ethnographic museum?’) or relate to much broader topics (in
fact, they don't even have to be formulated as questions!) Informal
conversations outside of seminars and scheduled activities allow you to delve
further into subjects brought up during sessions or surgeries. These might
happen around a glass of wine late into the night, or on early morning walks
around the estate.’
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