My experience of the 2012 Postgraduate Symposium….

As usual this was a great event.

Congratulations to Jesse Pirini for winning the 3 min thesis competition! I was talking to another student where I work and he said Jesse’s talk was really good.

For those of you who missed Prof Welby Ings keynote at the Postgraduate Symposium, it was, as usual, awesome. His subject was; ‘The back of beyond: Re-search and thought in postgraduate education’. He said that if it wasn’t uncomfortable and difficult being a student then you weren’t really getting anywhere new. That it’s not just about new knowledge but a depth of understanding, and that we are all creative, regardless of our discipline, because we undertake ‘disobedient thought’ – we’re challenging what’s come before. He points out that academics are, under the Education Act 1989 ‘critic and conscience’ of society, and that involves asking questions and pushing boundaries, and that the first thing you do when you replace the freedom of thinking with dogma is to get rid of the intellectuals (he used the example of Humboldt University in 1933 who removed a third of their staff and burned 20,000 books).

He pointed out that since our work will be published digitally in the Scholarly Commons, we are under more pressure to write a really good thesis, but at the same time we have great opportunities to share our work in a way that couldn’t be done previously.  And finally he said the student who has always got A grades has missed an opportunity. By walking ‘the golden path’ he/she has missed ‘the muddy path’ where rejection or failure has forced the student to seek new ways of learning and push themselves beyond their expectations. Rousing stuff! If you haven’t seen Welby’s film ‘Munted’ it’s going to be re-screened for free (plus free food and drinks) at the Herald Theatre on Thursday 13^th September at 5.30pm – keep your eyes peeled for that as it’s well worth the effort to attend.

Other highlights of the day for me included Thanh Long Nguyen’s study of interculturality in English as a Foreign Language teaching in Vietnamese universities. There was a great discussion about the meaning of culture, and I was really impressed with Thanh’s methodological approach.

I couldn’t believe Erica D’Souza was a Masters student when she presented her amazing study of the reception of political documentary film among young people from Mumbai. It was a sophisticated piece of work, and the audience encouraged her to think about what could follow on from the excellent basis of the thesis.

Kudakwashe Tuwe (usually known as Tuwe) presented his passionate research on the challenges of health promotion with the African communities in New Zealand. His work within a community he knows from inside and outside has led to further and wider work alongside his colleagues in national health promotion.

Nathan Bromberg’s digital activism presentation for his Masters research attracted a large crowd interested in Nathan’s findings and his questions – it’s all very well to engage people online but how do you translate that in a real world experience with other people? He discussed how online activism and its challenges was the same and yet different to previous experiences of political protests and civil disobedience and left us with lots to think about. I liked Nathan’s presentation style and can see he’s a charismatic presence and leader of activist activities in his own right!

And finally I attended Imko Meyenburg’s presentation on his economic analysis of consumption. He was using, among other theorists, Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of rhizomatic activity. This was really exciting for me as I’ve only ever seen their work used in the Arts context, and this translation of their complex modelling of systems to the economic realm was really fresh thinking.

Unfortunately I had to go home after this and do some study of my own, but I really enjoyed the Symposium and I thank the organisers for all their hard work.

Author: Emma Jean Kelly (PhD Candidate)