Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference, at MediaCityUK: 2014/2015

GradProg talks Weds 3 June: Manchester & Porto Alegre Music Scenes // Metaphysics of the Drone's Eye in the Sky

Wednesday 3rd June 2015

Room 3.17 MCUK. All welcome!
External Speaker: Dr Fabricio Silveira (International Visiting Researcher from Unisinos, Brazil); (3.30-4.30)

Mapping Underground Popular Music Scenes in Manchester and Porto Alegre

Drawing on fieldwork conducted as part of the CAPES/Science without Borders project, “Creative Industries, Cities and Popular Music Scenes,” as well as his own sabbatical project in Manchester, Dr. Silveira will present his research into mapping underground music scenes, primarily in Manchester, and how cartographic and media archaeological methodologies can be used to enhance popular music and creative industries research.

Dr Fabricio Silveira is a Brazilian researcher into popular music and contemporary media based at Unisinos, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. He has numerous publications on popular music scenes including the recent monograph Instantaneous Ruptures: Entering and Leaving Pop Music. He is one of the leading researchers on the Science without Borders Special Visiting Researcher project in collaboration with Dr. Michael Goddard.

 
External Speakers: Dr Dean Lockwood and Dr Rob Coley (4.30-5.30)

Dream of the Drone

Our illustrated talk begins by diagramming an oneiric Lincolnshire in which puzzle pieces of the drone enigma are gathered and condensed. In preparation for World War 3, we commence with a flying lesson in Kirton-on-Lindsey before journeying on to RAF Tealby Moor, in the quantum environs of which we will map a confluence of magic, mediation, flight and warfare. We are constructing our own ‘Perturbative Adjacent Field’, but it will not be complete until we conclude the expedition four miles south of Lincoln, at RAF Waddington. Finally, in Waddington’s drone room, we can at last be ‘diverted’ into new realms of desire. The drone is the ‘signature device of the present moment’ (Noys) and a metaphysics of the drone, foregrounding divine powers of search and destroy, has captured the imaginations of many. What is at stake in the dream of the drone? Through what vectors is the drone exerting its transformative impact upon philosophy, media, aesthetics, social and cultural theory and how might these disciplines exploit the fabulatory function of the drone?

Cahal McLaughlin and Catherine Wheatley talks

 

Archiving voices from the Troubles, prisons as sites for recollection and re-enactment; moral retribution and the bind of the confessional, landscapes as imprisonning. Our thanks to Cahal McLaughlin and Catherine Wheatley for their fantatsic talks on media matters Irish.

GradProg talks this Weds (20/5): Prison as Conflict Memory Archive / "Calvary", Faith and Doubt

External Speaker: Prof Cahal McLaughlin (Creative Arts, Queens University of Belfast)
3.30-4.30, Room 2.20. MediaCityUK, University of Salford campus.

The Prisons Memory Archive: Representing Memories from a Conflict

The Prisons Memory Archive is investigating ways that narratives of a conflicted past are negotiated in a contested present in Ireland. The Haas (2013), Eames-Bradley (2009), and the Bloomfield (1998) Reports all recommended storytelling as a way of engaging with this issue that is both politically and psychically sensitive. Given the government’s failed attempts at established an official process for addressing the legacy of the past, there are a number of community and academic initiatives that have taken up this task. The Prisons Memory Archive is one such project, whose aim is to research the possibilities of engaging with the story of the ‘other’ in a society that is emerging from decades of political violence. The Prisons Memory Archive (PMA) filmed interviews back inside the prisons with those who passed through the Maze and Long Kesh Prison and Armagh Gaol, which were both touchstone and tinderbox during the 30 years of violent conflict in the North of Ireland. Using protocols of co-ownership, inclusivity and life-story telling, we filmed a range of participants including prison staff, prisoners, visitors, teachers, chaplains and probation officers.

Cahal McLaughlin is chair of Film Studies at Queens University Belfast. He is a documentary filmmaker and director of the Prisons Memory Archive. His latest films are We Were There (2014) on the role of women in the Maze and Long Kesh Prison, and We Never Give Up II (2012) on reparations in South Africa. His publications include Recording Memories from Political Conflict: a filmmakers journey (2010: Intellect).
 

External Speaker: Catherine Wheatley (Kings College London)
4.35-5.30, Room 2.20. MediaCityUK, University of Salford campus.

John McDonagh's 'Calvary' a Place Between Faith and Uncertainty
Following the last days of Catholic priest Father James (Brendan Gleeson), John Michael McDonagh’sCalvary contemplates the place of religion in contemporary Ireland, a country hit badly by the economic collapse and struggling with revelations of sexual abuse by priests and its institutional covering-up. McDonagh describes the film thus: “The mise en scène indebted to Andrew Wyeth. The philosophy to Jean Améry. The transcendental style inspired by Robert Bresson.” Yet while the film’s style and subject matter place it firmly in a cinematic tradition which starts with Carl Dreyer and moves through Bresson to, in different ways, Lars von Trier and Terrence Malick, the inclusion of dark humour reframes its consideration of faith and uncertainty. In my talk, I want to pay particular attention to how the director negotiates between satire and the serious possibility of grace in order to create a gap in which a genuine ambivalence towards the film’s subject matter can arise. We can connect this gap, this space which is inhabited by both Father James and by the film’s spectators to Gillian Rose’s concept of “the broken middle”, a place suspended between immanence and transcendence (Rose, 1992). This is precisely the position in which Father James finds himself. But this, says Rose, is where the sacred is to be found: in the space between religion and secularity; the personal and the institutional; faith and cynicism. Finally, I will briefly consider the film’s reception amongst critics and audiences, with whom Calvary has seen surprising success. I want to ask whether this critical success comes in spite or because of the fact that the film is, to quote Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw, “far less anti-clerical than one might expect” (Bradshaw, 2014).

Catherine Wheatley is Lecturer in Film Studies at King’s College London. She has published books on the films of Michael Haneke, Film and Ethics, and French Film in transit. Catherine is a regular contributor to Sight and Sound Magazine, and is currently writing a monograph on iterations of Christianity in contemporary European Cinema.

"Awake in your Dreams"

Our thanks to Shemin B Nair for presenting his most recent (and award-winning) short film to the Graduate Programme. We look forward to a screening of the next one!

Grad Prog (13 May): Public Broadcasting to Internet Protocol / Screening "Awake In Your Dreams"

MedicCity UK, Room 3.17/3.18

3.30-4.30pm

Dr Marko Ala-Fossi (University of Tampere, Finland)

 

‘The Short Future of Public Broadcasting: Replacing Digital Terrestrial TV with Internet Protocol?’

According to recent European estimates, the life expectancy of broadcasting as a free-to-air television platform may not be more than 15 years. Both the BBC and YLE, the public service media companies in the UK and Finland – as well as the UK regulator Ofcom – have independently reached this conclusion in recent reports about the future of news, media distribution and digital terrestrial television (DTT). Although broadcasting is expected to be necessary at least until 2030, all three organizations assume that after that time DTT can be switched off and – under certain conditions – completely replaced with IP-based solutions for PSM delivery.

This is not the first time a new distribution technology has been expected to replace earlier one(s). Television was expected to replace radio, FM to replace AM, DAB to replace FM, etc. But so far the telegraph is the only communication technology that has been completely displaced by newer systems. In the light of retrospective analysis in this paper, the idea of IPTV taking over DTT is a more sophisticated version of this “black box fallacy”. Predictions of the early demise of the DTT are also contradictory. For example, in the UK Ofcom continues to support DAB digital radio broadcasting. The Finnish case is perhaps more straightforward as the spectrum for digital radio is used in clearing the 700 MHz band from DTT for mobile broadband use. But it is evident that in both countries the expectations of the growth of the mobile media ecosystem and economic profits are part of the force driving the latest version of an old idea.

 

Using a theoretical perspective combining new institutionalism and political economy of communication, this paper examines potential and existing problems in replacing one sort of socio-technological system, i.e. broadcasting, with a completely different one. There are crucial technical difficulties and normative questions also arise. Would it be possible to secure universal access to public service content on a common platform? Would new gatekeepers emerge with access to IP-related data on users’ identities and locations? How might data flows be tracked and managed? And how secure might such data remain?

430-530pm, Shemin Nair (Salford PhD sutdent)

 

Film screening and Q and A

Awake in Your Dreams

Laura needs a redemption from her haunting dreams.

Synopsis

Laura experiences her kid’s death in her dreams at the very same time it happens. But she can’t respond as she is in a state called as sleep paralysis. And she experiences a series of hallucinations and dreams. Louis tries to rescue her. The film has a surreal form and is non descriptive and non narrative.

Alexei Penzin

Our thanks to Alexei Penzin for his talk on sleep: new territories of capitalist real subsumption, sleep as interrupted continuum, the Grundrisse re-read for Neo-Liberal times

Grad Prog 6/5: Social Media and PGR Profiles / "Sleep, Vigilance and Modern Power"

Wednesday 6th May 2015

Room 2.20 MediaCityUK (University of Salford building; please sign in at reception for the Graduate Programme)


3.30 PM - 4.30PM
Internal Speaker: Dr Gillian James (University of Salford)

Making the Most of Social Media to Aid Your Research Profile
You may be used to using social media to stay in touch with friends. However, it is also a very powerful tool for making connections with others researching in your field, whether your research is academic or practice-based. This session looks at optimising the use of:
Twitter
Facebook
Linkedin
We explore the most useful aspect of each of these platforms and look at several scenarios and establish which platform is the most appropriate tool for each one. In addition we look at setting up a blog and maintaining it in an effective way, possibly converting it into a full-blown web site. Most people would probably not want to use all of these tools, at least at first. The session will help you establish what is right for you.
 
4.30PM - 5.30PM

External Speaker: Dr Alexei Penzin (What is to be done? Collective/Univerity of Wolverhampton)
The Capitalist Continuum: Sleep, Vigilance and Modern Power

Departing from criticisms addressed to the Jonathan Crary’s recent book 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (Verso, 2013) and referring to some other works in emergent field of critical sleep studies, I would like to present my own research project, suggesting an account of sleep in the contemporary or “terminal” capitalism. Its essential feature, in my view, is the uninterrupted or permanently “wakeful” continuity of production, exchange, consumption, communication and control. Marx stated already in Capital, vol. 1: “Capitalist production … drives, by its inherent nature, towards the appropriation of labor throughout the whole of the 24 hours in the day”. Maybe, instead of asking desperate though understandable question “when and how, finally, will capitalism end? The Left critique would better investigate this monstrous continuity itself. So the key questions for this account would be: what would be a genealogy of this obsessive continuity of contemporary capitalism? Is sleep just the last “natural barrier”–the term Marx used in theGrundrisse–in front of complete colonization of society by the incessant forms of life, shaped by 24/7 drive of capitalist production? How can the figure of sleeper be related to the constitution of a resisting subjectivity? Do we need a specific ontology to conceptualize and crack the oppressive continuity?

Alexei Penzin is Reader at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Wolverhampton (UK), and Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. His major

fields of interest are philosophical anthropology, Marxism, Soviet and post-Soviet studies, and the philosophy of art. He lectures widely on these topics and has participated in many international research projects, seminars, and symposia. Penzin has written numerous articles including the essay Rex Exsomnis: Sleep and Subjectivity in Capitalist Modernity (Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2012). Alexei is a member of the group Chto Delat (What is to Be Done?), which works in the space between theory, art, and political activism. Penzin is also a member of editorial boards of the journal Stasis (Saint-Petersburg) and the Moscow Art Magazine. He currently lives and works between London and Moscow.

PGR Research via Monday's Scrapbook event (6 May)

A installation performance taking place on Wednesday 6th May at Media City between 7-9pm

The installation performance is a work in progress, opening up 20 weeks of laboratory work, during which we have been looking at how everyday objects, such as paper and string, can be reformed, reimagined and recreated through physical tasks. The work itself is devised from a ensemble practice creating contemporary, physical, task-based performance. I have attached the publicity document for more information.

GradProg talks Weds 18/3: Google Glasses / BBC and Popular Music

Two talks on the Graduate Programme this coming Weds (18 March):


Salford's Prof Andy Miah on Wearable Technology. 3.30-4.30, MediaCity, Salford University Campus Room 3.17.


and Prof Tim Wall (Birmingham City University) on the history of the BBC's engagement with popular music. 4.35 - 5.35, MediaCity, Salford University Campus Room 3.17.

All welcome, and drinks in the Dock Bar afterwards!




Internal Speaker: Prof Andy Miah (Chair in Science Communication and Digital media, University of Salford)


OK Glass? The Aspirations and Anxieties of the Google Glass Generation


This discussion explores online discourses about Google Glass, over a period where the devices were not yet available. It examines the aspirations and anxieties of the developers and the perspectives of (potential) user groups, so as to develop an understanding of how people imagine the impact of wearable technologies on society. The research draws on videos made by various parties, which show Google Glass in use, but which also parody the discourse surround its transformative potential. It also the content within the Google Glass lens itself - the lens within the lens - providing an additional layer of content and narrative about Glass. Analyses also take place on content related to the Google Glass promotional campaign #ifihadglass, teasing out the ways in which the use of Glass was imagined. The conclusions speak to the imagined, transformative potential of Glass specifically and wearable technologies generally, which may set a new research agenda for the next ten years in studies of digital culture.



External Speaker: Prof Tim Wall (Professor of Radio and Popular Music Studies, Birmingham City University)

Popular Music and the BBC


This presentation will focus on three moments in the history of the BBC’s relationship with popular music. I’ll examine the way that jazz entered broadcasts of the early BBC in the 1920s and 30s, and especially the way the new corporation struggled to deal with the idea that jazz was a sophisticated metropolitan form of entertainment, while others saw it as a radical new form of music that provided a strong sense of a new cultural identity to its listeners. It is interesting to note that the BBC was still struggling with these ideas in the late 1960s when the BBC completely reorganised its radio broadcasting into Radios One to Four. This is often seen as the moment in which the BBC accepted the challenge of the sea-based pilots but, as I will show, it is far more complex than this, and these endeavours resulted in a radical, if compromised, attempt to rethink popular music. I’ll complete the analysis with a discussion of the Later…. and X Factor. As twenty-first century popular music television, these programmes represent very different institutional takes on discourses of popular music and the way it can be mediated for domestic consumption. Rather ambitiously, I’ll use very different approaches to understand each of these moments, framing the 1920s by focusing on the (then) new wired and wireless technologies, grappling with the 1960s through ideas of institutionalised culture, and opening up today’s BBC using Barthesian ideas of mythology. Here I’m consciously seeking to study each period using a framework that is usually used to study other moments. In doing so I hope to open up some fundamental questions about what we think we know about music and the BBC, and about method and insight. This should be an interesting intellectual provocation for anyone studying media and/or music culture.




Tim Wall is Professor of Radio and Popular Music Studies and Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Arts, Design and Media at Birmingham City University. He researches into the production and consumption cultures around popular music and radio, and work on knowledge exchange projects with music and radio organisations and the wider creative industries. Most recently he has been applying insights from music to activism and citizen journalism in the Arab region. His recent publications have included the second edition of his book Studying Popular Music Culture, and articles on music radio online, punk fanzines, the transistor radio, personal music listening, popular music on television, television music histories, jazz collectives, Duke Ellington on the radio, The X Factor and jazz on the BBC 1922 to 1955.

Salford symposium: Melancholy Empire (16/4)

Salford symposium on contemporary British and Irish literature at Salford, you may register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/melancholy-empire-tickets-15873282415

The programme will be posted on this event page two weeks before the conference, which is on 16th April. Current confirmed paper titles, including the keynote lectures, can be found here: https://www.academia.edu/10241383/Melancholy_Empire

GradProg talks 11/3: Qs of Practice-Based Research // Zero Budget Film-making

11th of March, MediaCityUK, University of Salford Campus, Room: 3.17

Internal Speakers: Rosie Miller and Jonathan Carson (3.30-4.30)

Combining practice based and non-practice based research

This session examines strategies for students interested in combining practiced based and non-practice based research. It will also discuss the value of this combining especially in relation to reflexive thinking and the development of research work and a research profile. The session will be led by collaborative artists Carson & Miller.

External Speaker: Dr William Brown (Surrey Roehampton) (4.30 - 5.30)

Zero Budget Filmmaking: Why It Matters (and Why I Do It)

In this talk, I will discuss various forms of zero- to low-budget filmmaking from across the globe, including Uruguay, China, Iran, the Philippines, South Africa and the USA. I shall contend that zero budget filmmaking is, in the contemporary era, enabled by digital technology – and that the technology, in conjunction with the low budget, often leads to formal innovation that makes of this kind of filmmaking a vibrant and important form. Nonetheless, distribution remains a key issue for such films and filmmakers, in spite of the utopian promise of online distribution and exhibition sites such as YouTube and Vimeo. What is more, while often supportive of such films, film festivals are forced increasingly to be risk-averse in their film choices. Perhaps this means that academia is the realm where zero-budget filmmaking might thrive. Indeed, I query that the academic sphere is the best hope for zero-budget filmmakers, among whom I include myself: cheap enough to be formally adventurous, too cheap for festivals to risk losing an audience for.

William Brown is Senior Lecturer in Film at the University of Roehampton, London. He is the author of Supercinema: Film-Philosophy for the Digital Age (Berghahn, 2013) and Global Digital Cinema: Cinema and the Multitude (Berghahn, forthcoming). He is the co-author, with Dina Iordanova and Leshu Torchin, of Moving People, Moving Images: Cinema and Trafficking in the New Europe (St Andrews Film Studies, 2010) and the co-editor, with David Martin-Jones, of Deleuze and Film (Edinburgh University Press, 2012). He has also directed several zero- to low-budget films, including En Attendant Godard (2009), Afterimages (2010) and Common Ground (2012). He hopefully will also finish Ur: The End of Civilization in 90 Tableaux (2013) by the time he gives this talk.

Graduation Day

One of our recent PhD graduates (now lecturing at Bournemouth) reflects on the big day, and the essential support and friendship, when it comes to getting there, from fellow PhD students:

http://blackbritishacademics.co.uk/2014/07/18/academic-success-against-the-odds-the-amazing-dr-ndlovu/

"The academics tackling everyday sexism in university life"

Guardian article on Oxford-centred initiative: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/feb/24/sexism-women-in-university-academics-feminism

"The Raven on the Jetty" screening

Our thanks to Erik for screening his new film, The Raven on the Jetty, this afternoon, and for the compelling introduction and rich discussion: Bressonian aesthetics in the Lake District, the intimacy of soundscapes, narrative after causality, snow and sunshine and psychological change, and learning from child actors.

Times Higher: "Me and my PhD supervisor: tales of love and loathing"

When a PhD supervision session constitutes just another blocked-out hour in a besieged diary, it can be all too easy to forget that it could make an impression that stays with the student for the rest of their research career.

We asked five academics for their recollections of the PhD supervision they received, and the way it had informed their own approach to tutoring. Three had enjoyed excellent supervision that had deeply influenced their own practice. But two had not. One recalls exchanges with their tutor characterised by yawns and silences, while another was treated with a “cutting harshness”, valuable only as an exemplar of how not to conduct yourself.

Full: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.aspx?storyCode=2012205

Grad Prog at MediaCity 25/2: "The Raven on the Jetty"

Professor Erik Knudsen will be presenting his film The Raven on the Jetty (which won the 2014 Madrid International Film Festival Jury Award) and discussing perspectives on cinematic narrative.

The session will last from 3.30-5.30 in The Egg, MediaCityUK, University of Salford campus.

 

Perspectives on Cinematic Narrative: The Raven on the Jetty

Professor Erik Knudsen, will give a presentation entitled “Perspectives on Cinematic Narrative: exploring through creative practice the transcendental narrative as an alternative to dominant narrative structures in film”. Erik will screen and discuss his latest feature film, The Raven on the Jetty, in the context of its research aims and objectives. The format for this meeting will be a brief introduction highlighting some of the questions and problems Erik is exploring around cinematic narrative, screening of The Raven on the Jetty concluding with a short Q & A session.

PGR Programme

Our thanks to Prof Noha Mellor for her very well attended talk the other day: new paradigms of news gatekeeping, the "social space", and the challenges and conceits of non-aligned editorial positions.

Salford GradProg talk this Weds: "The Egyptian Dream: On Egyptian National Identity and the Uprisings"

11th February, Room 2.19, MediaCityUK

External Speaker: Prof Noha Mellor (3.30-4.30)

The Egyptian Dream: On Egyptian national identity and the uprisings

After being celebrated by Barack Obama as “the power of human dignity”, the 2011-Egyptian revolution later turned into violent outbreaks and ongoing socio-ideological fragmentation. In this lecture, I discuss one of the central problems in Egypt in post-independence era, namely the inability of its leaders to construct a coherent and solid ideology that could appeal and unite the majority of Egyptians. Indeed, there exist rhetorical and social strategies of inclusion and exclusion, thereby dividing society into those who are regarded as true representatives of Egypt versus others who may constitute an economic, political or social burden. I’ll discuss the role of religion, education, language and culture in constructing this sense of Egyptian-ness and how the issue of identity has been used in political discourse.

Professor Noha Mellor’s main research interests are Arab journalism, mediated religion and media and gender. Besides her academic experience, she has previous professional experience in journalism as News Producer both for the Danish Broadcasting and the BBC World Service, and contributed to international media outlets such as the New York Times and Financial Times. She contributes her expertise in Arab journalism to current trans-national initiatives to promote peace such as the UN Alliance of Civilizations, and was also the EUROMED and Media representative at the EU Ministerial Meeting on Culture, 30 May 2008, Athens. Books include Modern Arab Journalism (Edinburgh), Arab Media Industries (Polity) and, forthcoming, Cyber Islam and Social Media and the Pan-Arab Newsroom.

Internal Speaker: Dr Benjamin Halligan (4.45-5.45)

Viva Survival Guide

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.

Salford conference: Social Media and Feminism at MediaCityUK

All info and booking (free), available here: http://www.salford.ac.uk/news/social-media-and-feminism

Yuri Landman DIY Instrument Building Workshops

6th-8th February 2015

Experimental inventor of musical instruments, Yuri Landman, is visiting Islington Mill to deliver a series of workshops demonstrating his fascinating craft. Attendees will have the opportunity to build an instrument and participate in a performance using it. This is a fantastic opportunity to gain insight into the work of one of the most creative minds in instrument design. The day after the workshops Yuri Landman will play his musical compositions with the group of builders and create an ensemble performance. The participants play two musical compositions, starting in a minimal structure one by one, with each introduction creating more sonic complexity and volume, resulting in a “wall of sound” crescendo comparable with the drone works of Sonic Youth or the symphonic guitar compositions of Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca. -Fri FEB 6th - 19.00-23.00 - Electric Kalimba workshop, costs 75 Pounds.

-Sat FEB 7th - 12.00-16.00 - Home Swinger & Triochord workshop. HS costs 110 Pounds, Trio 45 Pounds.

-Sat FEB 7th - 19.00-23.00 - Wood on Foam workshop, costs 35 euro.

-Sun Feb 8th - Lecture, Solo performance, and Orchestra performance with the participants of the workshops.

People can register by mailing strateraser@gmail.com. 50% of the amounts must be paid in advance to get a confirmation for participation. More information can be found at http://www.islingtonmill.com/events.php

Sick! Festival at Manchester

Programme here: http://www.sickfestival.com/programme/channel/manchester/

Manchester University's Sexuality Summer School

Programme partially announced; updates on their blog, and registration info:

https://sexualitysummerschool.wordpress.com/

Guardian: How To Survive A PhD Viva

http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/jan/08/how-to-survive-a-phd-viva-17-top-tips

On 14: you could always ask for a short break of course. Perhaps Guardian journalists aren't afforded such workplace niceties?

Salford conference: “I’ll See You Again in 25 Years: The Return of Twin Peaks and Generations of Cult TV”

Call for Papers

“I’ll See You Again in 25 Years: The Return of Twin Peaks and Generations of Cult TV”

A two-day international conference.

School of Arts and Media, University of Salford, UK

21^{st- -} 22^nd May 2015

Confirmed keynote speakers:

· Professor David Lavery (Middle Tennessee State University, USA)

· Cristina Alvarez (Barcelona based independent video artist)

· Dr Adrian Martin (Monash University, Australia)

Proposals are invited for a two-day international conference on the return of the popular cult television series Twin Peaks. The conference presents a timely reconsideration of the critically acclaimed programme with the announcement of its return to television after a twenty five year hiatus. In the meantime, cultures of television production, circulation and viewer practices have changed dramatically; the US cable sector in this period becoming the primary site for a model of auteur-driven, big-budget offbeat serial drama that Twin Peaks served as prototype for, with this trend underpinning Showtime’s recommissioning of this series of broadcast network origin. But alongside such transformation, the cultural prominence of this landmark programme has endured, as the considerable enthusiasm among critics and fans for the series’ return demonstrates.

This conference seeks to address the issue of Twin Peaks’ significant influence and lasting appeal from a number of multi-disciplinary perspectives. We welcome proposals from scholars in the fields of cultural studies, television studies, film studies, visual arts, popular music studies, sound studies performance studies, digital and social media and related disciplines.

Proposals are invited on (but not limited to) the following topics:

Twin Peaks and fandom

Twin Peaks and generations of cult television

Music and sound design in Twin Peaks

Set design and visual style

The use and subversion of the crime and melodrama genres

Feminism and gender relations

Seriality in Twin Peaks and contemporary television

Camp performance styles in Twin Peaks

David Lynch and televisual auteurism

Twin Peaks and social media

Generations of quality television

Intertextuality between television, film and literature

Comic and melodramatic performance styles

Film and television convergence

Twin Peaks and the contemporary television industry

Deadline for abstracts: 31^st January 2015

300 word abstracts plus a 100 word biography should be sent to the conference organisers:

Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs K.Fairclough@salford.ac.uk

Michael Goddard M.Goddard@salford.ac.uk

Anthony Smith A.N.Smith@salford.ac.uk

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 12^th 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 13^th 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)

 

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.