All PhD students are welcome. Admission is free.
Registration for delegates extended to the 3rd of June

This interdisciplinary event brings together postgraduate researchers with an interest in topics related to buildings, towns, cities and their inhabitants. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the interconnections between the built environment and society, ecology and economy.

This free-of-charge one-day event combines presentations of papers and posters by postgraduate research students with discussions and dynamic group activities to enable exchange of information and development of new networks among researchers. Attendees will meet a wide variety of fellow researchers and share their views on the built environment, its future and the research that will inform it.
Celebrating the diversity of research, the event welcomes social and technical perspectives in fields from Archaeology to Zoology, and all ‘ologies’ in between.

Keynote speakers:

• Professor Emeritus Brenda Boardman, University of Oxford
• Dr Karen Parkhill, Cardiff University

For more information, please visit the forum website.

Keynote Speakers:
Dr Eileen Brennan (St Patrick’s College, Dublin City University)
Dr Elizabeth Wren-Owens (Cardiff University)

Doctoral researchers from the humanities and social sciences are invited to attend this interdisciplinary postgraduate conference that explores the concept of translation.
Organised by and for doctoral students, this conference will encourage participants to consider how the theme of translation relates to their own research and how their work relates to other researchers both within their subject area and in different disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. There will be a number of panels with presentations on topics such as literature, space, art, translation practice, and colonialism.

For more information see the Translations webpage.

‘Once Nature becomes environmentalized, its workings are submitted to the competing environmentality designs of various ecocritics’ – Timothy W. Luke

This conference seeks to shed new light on how researchers across disciplines in the humanities and social sciences conceive the interface between human behaviour and the natural environment not simply as a matter of scientific fact but as a problem for critical thought and cultural analysis. As the ecological crisis escalates, traditional conceptions of nature as the materially secure bedrock on which our social and cultural experiences are built appear increasingly obsolete.

We invite participants to respond to this critical ecological situation in ways which explore different senses of the word ‘critical’ and offer new perspectives on the environment as a field of contested meanings and practices. As new conditions force us to rethink the boundaries between the human and the non-human, the cultural and the natural, the organic and the inorganic, we must also rethink disciplinary boundaries and how we can communicate across them. In bringing a range of researchers from different backgrounds together around the term ‘critical ecologies’, we hope to exploit these shifting territories in order to suggest an expansive and inclusive conception of ecological research as a mode of critical and cultural inquiry.

This event will generate dialogue and exchange on how we, in Timothy W. Luke’s words, ‘environmentalize’ nature according to the competing designs of our different research strategies and theoretical concerns and how these differences may suggest the contours of a common ground. Topics might include, but are by no means confined to, the following:

• Environmental ethics and ecophilosophy – are there specifically ecological ways of thinking, being, and acting?
• Climate change and the media
• Environmental literary and film studies
• Connections between critical and cultural theory and green politics
• The relations between site-specific practices (walking, observing, gardening etc.) and ecological thought
• Environmental crisis and apocalyptic narratives in popular culture
• Science studies and theories of the nature/culture divide
• Environmental aspects of space and spatiality
• Green strategies in art and design
• Eco-psychology and ecological theories of affect and emotion
• Animal studies and species extinction
• Ecological cultural criticism and the challenges of interdisciplinarity
• Political ecology and gender and queer studies

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to criticalecologies@cardiff.ac.uk no later than Tuesday 30 April 2013.

The School would like to present an evening of music and poetry on Wednesday 15 May (time and venue yet to be finalised), providing a great opportunity for some of Cardiff’s post-graduate artistic talent to go on display.

If you are a musician, member of a small group or ensemble, singer or poet in any language, and would be interested in taking part, please get in touch with some details describing your style and experience. We would love to capture the international spirit of the university with performances from a range of cultural backgrounds and languages.

(Note: it is unlikely that we will be using a sophisticated sound-system so you will need to be able to perform acoustically or with a basic mic/amp/speaker set-up. Also – so that we do not raise expectations of international fame too high – not all delegates will arrive in time for the opening on Wednesday, so we should not expect a full turn-out as audience!)

If interested, please email waltonRW@cf.ac.uk by Friday 29 March.

Keynote address: Dr Andrew Edgar School of English, Communication and Philosophy) ‘Postemotional Society and the Philosophy of Sport’

Registration is now open for delegates for the 8th and largest ever Voice of Humanities Conference.  The Voice of Humanities is a popular interdisciplinary conference organised by postgraduate researchers within Cardiff University.

With over 20 speakers, this year’s conference brings together a range of papers around a number of themes: communication in the modern world, frontiers, borders and individuals in conflict, disempowerment, religious and migration studies, and Welsh identity.

Speakers are all postgraduates or independent researchers at the cutting edge of their fields. The interdisciplinary nature of the conference brings together an impressive range of perspectives and approaches.  From post modernism, linguistics and discourse analysis to ancient history, musicology and psychoanalysis, the conference is an ideal opportunity for intellectually stimulating networking.

Alongside our speakers, we also have a range of posters displaying new and exciting research from a variety of humanities disciplines.

The conference is free, but anyone wishing to attend is asked to book in advance.  For further information and to download a booking form, please click here or email VoiceOfHumanities@cf.ac.uk

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Dr Eileen Brennan (St Patrick’s College Drumcondra)
Dr Elizabeth Wren-Owens (Cardiff University)

Considering translation as both a linguistic and ontological phenomenon, this conference centres on the exchange of ideas across the humanities and social sciences. We are looking for doctoral students from a variety of disciplines to consider how the theme of translation relates to their own research and how their work relates to other researchers both within their subject area and in different disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. Some of the most important intellectual ideas have emerged in the crossing of disciplinary boundaries and this conference would like to consider how this interdisciplinary exchange and translation of ideas functions today.

The full Call for Papers can be found below:

Translations Conference 2013 – Call for Papers

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted to TranslationsConference@cf.ac.uk by March 24. Please include a brief biographical note. If accepted, papers should be no more than 20 minutes long.

An abstract submission form and further information can be found here.

The working title for this event is ‘Interdisciplinary Conference on the Built Environment: Society, Sustainability, Environment and Economy’. Funding for this event has been awarded by the University Graduate College.

An organising meeting will be held at 5:15pm on Tuesday, 26 February in Room 3.19 of the Graduate Centre.

Attendees will include students from a wide range of disciplines, including (but not limited to) architecture, engineering, planning, geography, physical sciences, social sciences, psychology, business, and economics. The forum will provide an opportunity for Cardiff postgraduate students to exchange knowledge about the built environment and to develop networks within the University.

All students with an interest in the built environment are encouraged to attend.

The event is expected to consist of a series of short presentations, posters, and a range of group activities. Input, creativity, and energy from students are needed to make the event a success! Please come along to the meeting to learn more about the event and join the organising committee.

If you plan to attend or would like to register interest please contact Tim Forman, at formantv@cardiff.ac.uk

Keynote Speaker: Dr Katie Featherstone
School of Nursing and Midwifery Studies, Cardiff University

Postgraduate researchers;

You are invited to attend the 6^th annual “Spotlight on Social Sciences” conference, showcasing current research in the social and economic sciences.

This is a conference for postgraduate researchers, developed by postgraduate researchers. It therefore offers excellent experience of being in a supportive conference setting and provides the perfect environment for meeting and establishing links with other like-minded researchers from different schools and universities. The talks are aimed at non-specialist audiences so it is also a great opportunity to discover research which you might not usually have access to.

There will be approximately 16 short (15 minutes) talks throughout the day, with poster presentations on display during the lunch break. Prizes will be awarded at the end of the day for the best talk and best poster. Lunch and refreshments are provided and the day will end with a cheese and wine reception.

Presentations will include:

“I know You. What would you like me to say” the benefits And hazards of being known to the setting you wish to Research”

“Being a good tibetan: Lay perceptions of madness and its causes”

The conference is free but anyone wishing to attend is asked to book in advance so that we can make the necessary catering arrangements. Please find delegate booking forms below.

The deadline for delegate registration is midnight on Wednesday 27th February 2013

  Spotlight Delegate Booking Form English (15.1 Kb, 25 downloads)

  Spotlight Delegate Booking Form Welsh (16.0 Kb, 11 downloads)

For further information, please go to

http://www.facebook.com/groups/SpotlightSS

Twitter- @SpotlightSocSci

Or email: Spotlight@cf.ac.uk

A Conference and Poster Competition for Postgraduate Researchers at Cardiff University and Neighbouring Institutions.

Submit your abstract for the chance to participate in the 2013 Speaking of Science conference.  Now in its 11^th year, this unique and very popular student-led event is open to all postgraduate researchers in the physical, biomedical and life sciences.

For further information go to the Speaking of Science web site.

Now in its eighth year, The Voice of Humanities is a popular interdisciplinary conference organised by postgraduate researchers within Cardiff University.  The aim of the conference is to provide Humanities-based Ph.D. students from Cardiff University and neighbouring institutions with the opportunity to discuss and present their own specialised area of research in a friendly and intellectually stimulating environment.

**£100 cash prize for the best presentation and £50 for the best poster! **

Further information can be found on the conference website.