Monday 18th June 2012 10:00-13:00 (including lunch from 12:30) Teaching Grid, 2nd Floor, Library This event has been designed to provide attendees with first-hand knowledge for conducting collaborative research by giving them the chance to listen to, and interact with, more experienced members of academic staff who have conducted these kinds of research projects. The…

Dear colleagues, fellow students and friends, I don’t know if you are aware of the looming redundancies in the University of Salford, and the process for weeding out staff. People in most schools and departments (including sociology and politics) are having to reapply for their jobs (Professors are not included in this procedure, but in…

Monday 18th June 2012 10:00-13:00 (including lunch from 12:30) Teaching Grid, 2nd Floor, Library This event has been designed to provide attendees with first-hand knowledge for conducting collaborative research by giving them the chance to listen to, and interact with, more experienced members of academic staff who have conducted these kinds of research projects. The…

Consider this critic a cretin, Just resting on laurels completely invented. Word acrobatics performed with both harness and net. I am so full of shit. But I will remain until this self-awareness fades Until I defeat the purpose of this soapbox that you made. That you made. Hope, perseverance, a vision (some doubt). Green ink,…

Monday 18th June 2012 10:00-13:00 (including lunch from 12:30) Teaching Grid, 2nd Floor, Library This event has been designed to provide attendees with first-hand knowledge for conducting collaborative research by giving them the chance to listen to, and interact with, more experienced members of academic staff who have conducted these kinds of research projects. The…

The Digital Tools for Research programme aims to introduce Early Career Researchers to the use of social media at all stages of the research lifecycle. Beginning on Monday 28th May with three core modules to be completed by Friday 20th July: Publishing on the web Tools covered: blogs Online identity Tools covered: Academia.edu Networking Tools…

Digital Change GPP Workshops for University of Warwick Researchers An introduction to multi-author blogging Tuesday, May 29th, 12pm to 1pm Research Exchange, Seminar Room 2 Register for the event here Introduction to academic podcasting 6th June, 12pm to 1pm Research Exchange, Seminar Room 1 Register for the event here Demystifying social media 18th June, 2pm…

31st May 12 noon to 3:30 pm (including lunch between 12 and 1) Scarman House This event has been designed to give attendees the ability to produce competitive Post-Doc funding applications by giving them the chance to listen to, and interact with, more experienced colleagues who have won Post-doc awards. Matthew Watson is Professor of Political…

I cut my teeth on the stone of a teenage romance I was the salt of the earth, I was hard, and the last of the independents And the breath from my chest I was blowing kerosene My lips and fingertips were stone, I wore my heart on my jeans I sang the blues like…

Staff and students announce protests against University of Sussex privatisation  Staff and students at the University of Sussex will be protesting against plans to privatise university’s support services next week.  Campus trade unions today (Friday) announced there will be protests on Tuesday (22 May) and Thursday (24 May) at 1pm at the university’s library square (see notes…

I took a drive today, thought about you. Thought about a friend who passed, and how much we just went through. I saw the sun shine off the hood of a cadillac, I thought about some things i’d say, and some i would take back. I thought about how fortunate i feel to be alive.…

The FWSA is now offering a small grant of £250 for workshops, seminars, conferences and networks organised by and aimed at postgraduate students. This money can be used for a variety of purposes and can be used alongside other awards. The lead organizers named on the application form must be FWSA members at the time the application and at the time the initiative is to take…

Please forward this training event to all your colleagues. Many thanks.   Do you have an understanding of asexuality? What is the place of intimacy and amorous or romantic relationships within asexualities? What is your current thinking around sexual desire?   Asexuals are making themselves heard and thus are redefining what we understand by intimacy,…

We’re delighted to announce that we’ve recently published a collection of memories of childbirth, as part of a public engagement project. This is entitled ‘Hiding in the Pub to Cutting the Cord? Fatherhood and Childbirth in Britain, from the 1950s to the Present’, and is currently being undertaken at the Centre for the History of…

This is  just a reminder that Centre for the Study of Women and Gender is hosting an afternoon seminar on “Gender and Sport” on Friday 18th May, 2012 in Ramphal 3.41, from 2-5pm. Attendance is free, and everyone is welcome – please drop me an e-mail if you’d like to attend so we can order enough…

This podcast discusses cultural consumption in contemporary British society, exploring who does what and why, against the backdrop of the ethos of creative workers. The cultural ‘omnivore’ thesis is outlined and critiqued, suggesting the importance of expertise, social status and social class to understand cultural consumption. The podcast links consumption to production by linking creative…

The word ‘blogging’ often has negative connotations. Yet blogging can be understood both as an output and as a platform. Many negative views about blogging are connected to a certain idea of what it is: a single author, using it as a forum to express their views to a world which, in my cases, isn’t particularly interested. However this…

The research is two years old so it’s very possible this has changed dramatically but I’ve been preoccupied with this for the last few days: http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/use-and-relevance-web-20-researchers

Technologists also believe that publishing is transportable — anyone can be a publisher. All you need are some basic skills, access to a blogging platform, and some determination. While for certain forms of expression this can be true — this blog is an example — for a complex organism like an academic press or an…

Studying gender and sexuality psychosocially: Dialogue across perspectives Tuesday 15 May 2012, 10:00-16:40 The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA Location: Michael Young Building 1,2 & 3 Map and Directions: http://www8.open.ac.uk/about/main/faculties-and-centres/milton-keynes-campus  Event This event brings together people who are studying gender and sexuality from a variety of psychosocial perspectives. There have been a…

Particular types of technology lend themselves to this digital, networked and open approach. Brian Lamb (2010) borrows the title from Errol Morris’ 1997 documentary to describe the kind of technology he prefers and thinks is useful in education as being fast, cheap and out of control. As with digital, networked and open, it is the…

Mike O’Donnell’s talk on “Charles Wright Mills and the (Continuing) Problem of Radical Agency” from the C Wright Mills session I organised at the BSA conference in Leeds. Will go up on Sociological Imagination once I’ve finished editing the session and gathering the related material I want to post up with it.

An introduction to multi-author blogging Publishing on the web as a researcher Single author vs multi-author blogging “Blogging is quite simply, one of the most important things that an academic should be doing right now” Multi-author academic blogs are the way of the future Ten Commandments for Editing Someone’s Work Cite or site? An article which…

Community Development Journal Plus – ePublishing as supplement to core journal End user online survey of eBooks in Higher Education  Sage encouraging and supporting the use of social media by their authors to reach a wider audience (see here and here) The History Blogging Project – a case study worth looking at in greater depth for the report…

NatCen Social Research, Sage and the Oxford Internet Institute will be launching our new network for methodological innovation at the end of May. The network will explore whether social science researchers should embrace social media and, if we do, what the implications are for our methods and practice? We know that social media tools are…

Part 3 of a conversation recorded at the BSA conference 2011. Will go up on various sites once I’ve finished editing.

Part 2 of a conversation recorded at the BSA conference 2011. Will go up on various sites once I’ve finished editing.

The Sociological Cinema is edited and published by Valerie Chepp, Paul Dean, and Lester Andrist, a team of three graduate students in the Sociology Department at the University of Maryland. The idea of The Sociological Cinema came to us over the course of several conversations in which we repeatedly found ourselves discussing our use of video clips in the classroom. While teaching…

I’m compiling a directory of sociological bloggers for sociological imagination – do you want to be on it? If so please fill out the form below & I’ll add you to the directory.

Part 1 of a conversation recorded at the BSA conference 2011. Will go up on various sites once I’ve finished editing.

Increased communication and exchange at the pre-publication stage could, perhaps, serve to exacerbate this problem. However while this is undoubtedly a risk, it is far from an inevitability and, furthermore, the costs are outweighed by the benefits. Part of the problem stems from the strikingly monological and unidimensional way in which publication tends to be…

“There’s no money left” So in case you hadn’t heard, there’s no money left. A profligate Labour party frittered it all away and, just like any household that had done the same thing, we now have to ‘tighten our belts’. However my interest in this presentation isn’t the erroneousness of the household finance metaphor, the political uses…

I dislike the author intensely but she is absolutely spot on in this case. As Colin Crouch argues in his post-democracy thesis, the professionalisation of political communication is one of the defining characteristics of late capitalist political culture. The internal democracies of parties are hollowed out, parliamentarians live lives far removed from the electorate while…

Dear all, We are delighted to announce that registration for Marginal Cartographies: Researching beyond borders, to be held at the University of Warwick on Saturday 28 April 2012, is now open here: http://marginalcartographies.wordpress.com/registration/ The £10 registration fee includes lunch and refreshments, as well as a wine reception. You will also find the programme for the…

The survey verified that research libraries are rapidly developing publishing services. By late 2007, 44% of the 80 responding ARL member libraries reported they were delivering publishing services and another 21% were in the process of planning publishing service development. Only 36% of responding institutions were not active in this arena. These libraries are publishing…

The new presses are based in or closely collaborate with university libraries and combine an established publishing knowledge with the expertise of the library staff in areas such as digitisation, data management, archiving, preservation and faculty relationships. The close association between library and university press, or indeed the integration of the press into the library…

The Digital Scholar is a book I’ve been intending to read for quite some time. It’s also fittingly an instance of Bloomsbury Academic’s particular approach to digitally enhanced publishing. The digitally enhanced book is accessible through a webpage with four tabs, each with distinct functionality: An overview of the book, bibliographical/publication information, table of contents…

I was just reading this post on the Good Men Project: it’s a question by a guy who’s worried he’s being ‘used’ as a ‘substitute boyfriend’ by a female friend who regularly calls him to talk before bed. The ‘expert’ columnists advise him that, yes, he is being used and that he should break off…

BSA TEACHING GROUP Call for micro-lectures To all Postgraduates in Universities local to Birmingham At the BSA TEACHING GROUP ANNUAL CONFERENCE BIRMINGHAM, 29th SEPTEMBER 2012 Do you want to: Enhance your profile?         Keep sociology teachers up-to date? Talk to the people who will be writing the next generation of textbooks for…

What do people gain from all the toil    at which they toil under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes,    but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down,    and hurries to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south,    and goes around to the north;…

Dear members of IACR and friends of critical realism,   Christian Smith, who shared the 2011 Cheryl Frank Memorial Prize with Alan Norrie,   for his book “What is a Person?” will give his lecture:     “Human Nature, Human Goods, and Motivation for Action”     at the Institute of Education in London  Wednesday…

The word ‘blogging’ often has negative connotations. Yet blogging can be understood both as an output and as a platform. Many negative views about blogging are connected to a certain idea of what it is: a single author, using it as a forum to express their views to a world which, in my cases, isn’t particularly…

Did you hear the ’59 Sound coming through on grandmother’s radio? Did you hear the rattling chains in the hospital walls? Did you hear the old gospel choir when they came to carry you over? Did you hear your favorite song playing one last time…? Tell all the young boys, young girls,  All the young…

A presentation by Dr. Ashley Mears from the University of Boston -‘Pricing Looks: the Gendered Production of Value in an Aesthetic Economy’ Fashion modelling is one of a handful of occupations in which women routinely earn more than men, commanding wage premiums up to 75 percent. How do women manage to earn more than men…

In light of the funding council emphasis on collaborative partnerships for research and impact, both with other HEIs and with private and public organisations, it is crucial that today’s researchers are capable of working effectively with a range of organisations. What it is: An interactive workshop on effective engagement with non-academic partners. Led by: Dr Maggie Leggett,…

Connecting at a distance: creating a collaborative language learning community. This seminar will combine insights from our experience and hands-on opportunities to evaluate technologies for connection and collaboration in an informal, international community. We will build and expand our own personal learning networks to help find support for the challenges faced in your individual contexts.…

University Publishing In A Digital Age By publishing we mean  simply the communication and broad dissemination of knowledge, a function that has become both more complex and more important with the introduction and rapid evolution of digital and networking technologies. There is a seeming limitless range of opportunities for a faculty member to distribute his…

Interview with Martin Eve, associate lecturer and tutor in English Literature at the University of Sussex. Founding Editor of Orbit: Writing Around Pynchonand formerly Chief Editor of Excursions. Formerly an internet developer.

You can tell Gayle, if she calls, That I’m famous now for all of these rock and roll songs. And even if that’s a lie, she should’ve given me a try. When we were kids on the field of the first day of school. I would’ve been her fool. And I would’ve sang out your…

This is for the messed up kids bound like dynamite, The wandering drunks out on the town tonight, For the romantic killer that’s never been caught, For the crackpot who hit the jackpot and stopped. This is those who climb right to the top, Just to feel what it’s like to drop, For the critical…