Event typeAcademic

Dr Alysa Ghose
University of Edinburgh

Title: Knowledge from feeling, action from advice – the collective hustle and erotic witnessing of spiritual development in Cuban Espiritismo

Abstract: TBA

This biology postgraduate career session will feature discussions around the challenges of finding a job in sciences while balancing a family life.

The event will include a diverse panel of speakers, academics and non academics, who will talk about personal experiences and offer suggestions on how to find the optimal balance between a rewarding job and a stable family life.

The panel of speakers includes:

• Dr Christopher Stockdale, Clinical Scientist at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• Dr Katie Gillies, Health Care Assessment Programme Director & Senior Research Fellow, University of Aberdeen
• Julie McLellan, Career Adviser, University Careers Center
• Professor Maria Dornelas, School of Biology
• Dr Nicholas Jones, Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of Biology

Each speaker will give a ten-minute presentation followed by five-minutes for questions. At the end of the session there will be a round table discussion. The event will run on a dual mode: most talks will be live but some will be online via MS Teams.

Please register for the event using this online form.

How does the global rise of populism impact regional governance? Media pundits and scholars often portray populism as a fundamental challenge to multilateralism and a rules-based international order. Especially in its current right-wing variant, populism appears to engender narrowly nationalist agendas, inward-looking policies, and sometimes open hostility to the very notion of transboundary cooperation. However, the track record of populist leaders around the world reveals no general unilateral backlash. Virtually all populist-led governments of recent years have remained engaged in multilateral organisations to a notable degree, and some of them have even launched new cooperation initiatives. The regional level is a particularly lively scene of such strategies, and regional organizations have become a primary site of contestation between populist and non-populist actors. This roundtable brings together experts on populism and regionalism to discuss the link between populism and foreign policy, how populist leaders perceive regional cooperation, and the broader implications for the so-called liberal international order.

Email irevents@st-andrews.ac.uk to register

Roast your Supervisor — A Research Events series organised by the ModCon Research Group: Dr Sam Haddow & Mia Furlong – Legacies of 9/11 (Content warning for themes of death, torture, and executions)

The series ‘Roast your Supervisor’ will give a platform to School of English staff to present their recent research to the School community.

There is, however, a twist to these events: Following the presenter’s presentation, they will be grilled by one of their own PhD students about the topic and their research.

This turns a conversational situation which most of us are used to — namely the supervisee explaining themselves and their research to their supervisor — on its head.

Naturally, it would also be encouraged for the audience to ask some critical questions and participate as actively as possible.

The events will take place on MS Teams on a fortnightly basis on Wednesdays at 5.30pm and they will be free to attend for anyone interested.

Please e-mail Sam Haddow (jsfh@st-andrews.ac.uk) or Sandro Eich (se56@st-andrews.ac.uk) with any questions or to be added to the MS Teams channel.

Weekly seminar of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Politics (CSRP)

The ‘Equality Matters’ symposium is coordinated by the St Andrews Global Challenges Forum.

The St Andrews Global Challenges Forum was formed in 2018 and builds on the University’s commitment to the Global Challenges agenda. The forum supports the University’s extensive Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) challenge-led research base, funded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) GCRF QR Grant, and contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Chaired by Professor Thomas Meagher, this symposium is part of symposia webinar series on the overarching theme of ‘Sustainable Futures’ with the cross-cutting impact topics of:

• Equality Matters
• Sustainable Livelihoods
• Social Justice
• Evidence-based policy

Our vision for these themed sessions is that each will consist of two to three paired talks from St Andrews researchers and their ODA partners, followed by a panel presentation and discussion.

These topics are applicable to the SFC-funded GCRF projects portfolio as underlying issues are being addressed with more discipline-specific research. We intend that they will form the basis for substantive interdisciplinary discussions.

Find out more about GCRF on Facebook or Twitter.  For further information, please email RIS_GCRF@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Postgraduate research seminar.

Please contact Kate Dove on kad20@st-andrews.ac.uk or Liz O’Keefe on ero4@st-andrews.ac.uk for further information.

In recent decades, rapid technological developments and the rise of a diverse commercial space industry have opened-up space to a much wider array of state and non-state actors. Space-based applications from satellites now enable virtually every aspect of modern life, from military operations to just-in-time logistics, banking, navigation and weather forecasting.

The growing volume and diversity of space operations raise concerns that the primary orbital zones are, in the oft-used phrase, increasingly “congested, competitive and contested”. These realities have led to intensifying calls for renewed multilateralism to address pressing challenges and ensure the peaceful and sustainable uses of outer space.

This expert roundtable examines the one key dimension of these multifaceted debates, concerning the prospective regulation of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons. The discussion will begin by introducing a recent open letter from the Outer Space Institute at the University of British Columbia (UBC), which urges the UN General Assembly to take up consideration of a treaty that would prohibit debris-generating ASAT tests. Panellists Professor Michael Byers, Victoria Samson and Sarah Thiele will situate this initiative in its technological, scientific, legal and diplomatic context and will consider additional proposals for regulating ASAT systems along with the political difficulties in developing restraints.

Professor Michael Byers of the Department of Political Science at UBC is Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law and co-director of the Outer Space Institute at UBC where, among other initiatives, he was a lead author of a recent International Open Letter on Kinetic Anti-Satellite (ASAT) Testing which provides the basis for this roundtable.
Victoria Samson is the Washington Office Director for Secure World Foundation, an internationally recognised expert on military space and security issues, and a prolific author of numerous op-eds, analytical pieces, journal articles and updates on missile defence and space security matters. She is the co-editor of the annual Global Counterspace Capabilities report, published by the Secure World Foundation.

Sarah Thiele is a fourth-year undergraduate student at UBC studying for a Bachelor of Science with Combined Honours in Physics and Astronomy. She is a Junior Fellow of the Outer Space Institute and previous intern at the Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx). Sarah conducted the calculations on debris-generation from kinetic anti-satellite weapons presented in the OSI open letter.

Professor Kim Baines from Western University, London, Ontario presents: ‘Fun with Low Valent Si and Ge Complexes: From Mechanism to Catalysis’.

One of the most important advances in inorganic chemistry over the last 30 years was the discovery of stable low valent species of the heavier main group elements. The detailed characterization of these unsaturated species has profoundly influenced our understanding of structure and bonding and the diverse reactivity of these compounds has provided facile entry into a number of previously unknown functional molecules.

Our investigations into the chemistry of ditetrelenes and low valent Group 14 cations are guided by our interest in the fundamental chemistry of ditetrelenes particularly pertaining to small molecule activations and potential applications of low valent compounds, particularly in catalysis. In this lecture, a detailed view of the activation of ammonia by a disilene and the hydrosilylation of carbonyl compounds by low valent germanium cations will be presented.

Join staff from the Department of Spanish and artists from the duo AURIC for a performance based on Spanish classical poetry, translated and adapted to English by Paula Rodríguez and set to music by Arthur Astier.

The theme for the evening is love. Verses from both Spanish Medieval and Golden Age traditions will be discussed and brought into the modern age through the universal power of music and the spoken word.

Weekly seminar of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Politics (CSRP)

The ‘Sustainable Livelihoods’ symposium is coordinated by the St Andrews Global Challenges Forum.

The St Andrews Global Challenges Forum was formed in 2018 and builds on the University’s commitment to the Global Challenges agenda. The forum supports the University’s extensive Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) challenge-led research base, funded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) GCRF QR Grant, and contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Chaired by Professor Thomas Meagher, this symposium is part of symposia webinar series on the overarching theme of ‘Sustainable Futures’ with the cross-cutting impact topics of:

• Equality Matters
• Sustainable Livelihoods
• Social Justice
• Evidence-based policy

Our vision for these themed sessions is that each will consist of two to three paired talks from St Andrews researchers and their ODA partners, followed by a panel presentation and discussion.

These topics are applicable to the SFC-funded GCRF projects portfolio as underlying issues are being addressed with more discipline-specific research. We intend that they will form the basis for substantive interdisciplinary discussions.

Find out more about GCRF on Facebook or Twitter.  For further information, please email RIS_GCRF@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Postgraduate research seminar.

Please contact Kate Dove on kad20@st-andrews.ac.uk or Liz O’Keefe on ero4@st-andrews.ac.uk for further information.

At this seminar Dr Richard Moore, University of Warwick, will present an online seminar titled ‘Learning (to learn) from others’, hosted by Kirsty Graham.

In this talk Richard will argue that two skills identified as central to human cognitive uniqueness – pointing and imitation – may result from a common underlying cognitive shift in human or late hominin history. While they are typically argued to be the result of independent adaptations for cooperative communication and high-fidelity social learning, Richard’s research suggests that there are relatively weak grounds for thinking they derived from independent biological changes rather than a single cultural or ecological change.

He will argue that the development of both pointing comprehension and imitation likely resulted from an ecological change in our ancestral environment, which led our ancestors to look to each other, rather than to their environment, as sources of information about the world. Richard will explain why both ape emulation and pointing failure can be thought of as resulting from individualistic information gathering strategies, and sketch a scenario that would have made such strategies non-viable. Richard will present some empirical data he has collected with his collaborators, which supports a new explanation of why great apes are typically poor at pointing comprehension.

Finally, he will argue that since both pointing and imitation have been trained with enculturation, they should not be assumed to result from biological adaptations in the hominin lineage.

MS Teams link:

Dr Lisa Davidson
York University

Title: Multiculturalism as the Work of Miracles – Christianity and Canadian Belonging Among Racialized Presbyterians in Toronto

Abstract: TBA

The ‘Social Justice’ symposium is coordinated by the St Andrews Global Challenges Forum.

The St Andrews Global Challenges Forum was formed in 2018 and builds on the University’s commitment to the Global Challenges agenda. The forum supports the University’s extensive Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) challenge-led research base, funded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) GCRF QR Grant, and contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Chaired by Professor Thomas Meagher, this symposium is part of symposia webinar series on the overarching theme of ‘Sustainable Futures’ with the cross-cutting impact topics of:

• Equality Matters
• Sustainable Livelihoods
• Social Justice
• Evidence-based policy

Our vision for these themed sessions is that each will consist of two to three paired talks from St Andrews researchers and their ODA partners, followed by a panel presentation and discussion.

These topics are applicable to the SFC-funded GCRF projects portfolio as underlying issues are being addressed with more discipline-specific research. We intend that they will form the basis for substantive interdisciplinary discussions.

Find out more about GCRF on Facebook or Twitter.  For further information, please email RIS_GCRF@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Postgraduate research seminar.

Please contact Kate Dove on kad20@st-andrews.ac.uk or Liz O’Keefe on ero4@st-andrews.ac.uk for further information.

We are happy to invite you to the lecture series ‘Thinking Inclusively: A Lecture Series on the Role of Inclusive Academia in Intellectual Development’ developed by the Equality, Inclusivity and Diversity (EDI) committee of the School of Philosophy, Anthropology and Film Studies (PAFS).

The event is open to all members of the university and will take place on Friday, October 22nd, from 9.30am until 5pm BST/ London UK Time. This is a hybrid event where people can either attend online or in-person. Feel free to join for some of the talks or all of them.

The event will feature lectures given by current PhD students in the School of PAFS, as well as short presentations showcasing summer STEP projects lead by UG students and sponsored by the School.

The program is the following:

9.30am- 10am Welcome and coffee

10am- 11am
David MacDonald (Philosophy) and Manar Kawasmi (Social Anthropology)
“Issues of inclusion and power relations in Philosophy and Social Anthropology”

11.15-11.45am STEP Project: First Presentation by UG students

11.45am-1.15pm Lunch Break

1.15-1.45pm STEP Project: Second Presentation by UG students

2-3pm
Camila Ferreira Marinelli (Social Anthropology) and Olivia Booker (Film Studies)
“Practicality of decolonisation”

3.15-3.45pm STEP Project: Third Presentation by UG students

4-5pm
Cassice Last (Film Studies) and Enrico Galvagni (Philosophy)
“The Universal Subject? Breaking Down Assumptions in Western Philosophy and American Survival Films”

If you have any questions about the event or how to access it, please reach out to Lara Jost (laj7@st-andrews.ac.uk).

Dr Furaha Asani will be joining the School of Biology to give this talk titled ‘Social responsibility in Science’, followed by a Q&A session and all staff and students are welcome to attend.

Furaha is a public academic, mental health advocate, precarious migrant, and writer with interest in the themes of global health equity, a world without borders, digital placemaking, liberatory STEM pedagogy, and science in pop culture.

She has written for several platforms including The Guardian, The Independent, Forbes.com, Medium, Star Trek, Huffpost and many others. Currently Furaha is Research Lead at Watershed, part of the team at The Free Black University, and co-chair of Wellcome Connecting Science’s Community Advisory Panel.

Registration link for event.

and the School of International Relations presents

Central Asian Reaction to the Taliban –

With the withdrawal of US and coalition forces from Afghanistan and the rapid takeover by the Taliban, neighbouring Central Asian countries are once again at the focus of international attention. Most Central Asian governments recognized the Taliban in a pragmatic decision to peacefully coexist with the neighboring extremist regime that will likely remain in power for the foreseeable future. Tajikistan is, however, denying the Taliban recognition and indirectly supporting resistance movement in Panjshir. Political leaders hope that most people in their countries will see it in the same way — a pragmatic solution to a difficult security challenge. However, the public in the region is largely split between those who consider Afghanistan as a culturally alien country and those who quietly support the Taliban’s ascend to power as testament of successful Islamic movement capturing state politics. The political and human catastrophe in Afghanistan is threatening to boost autocratic tendencies and further deepen political gaps in Central Asian societies. I will discuss the rationale behind each Central Asian government’s approach to the Talibanized Afghanistan and the looming domestic and external challenges to the region.

Erica Marat is an Associate Professor at the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University. Her research focuses on violence, mobilization and security institutions in Eurasia, India, and Mexico. Before joining NDU, Dr. Marat was a visiting scholar at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center. Dr. Marat latest book titled The Politics of Police Reform: Society against the State in Post-Soviet Countries (Oxford University Press 2018) explores conditions in which police reform is likely to succeed or fail. Her articles appeared in Foreign Affairs, Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and other outlets.

Email irevents@st-andrews.ac.uk to register

Internal University audience

The Gifford Lectures (2021-2022) will be delivered by Oliver O’Donovan, Professor Emeritus of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh and Honorary Professor at St Andrews. This year, the lecture series will take place online via Microsoft Teams. Please note that a Teams link will be circulated later in October to registered attendees.

The lecture series, entitled ‘The Disappearance of Ethics’, will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5.30pm starting on Tuesday 26 October 2021 and ending on Thursday 11 November 2021:

26 October The missing object: the good
28 October The missing frontier: time
2 November The missing agent: the person
9 November Law and the recovery of history
11 November Spirit and the recovery of agency

Attendance is free and open to the public. We ask you to register online so we can keep track of numbers. Please register by booking tickets below.

Any questions can be directed to Dr Robyn Boeré on reb8@st-Andrews.ac.uk.

The prestigious Gifford Lectureships were established by Adam Lord Gifford (1820 to 1887), a senator of the College of Justice in Scotland. The purpose of Lord Gifford’s bequest to the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews and Aberdeen was to sponsor lectures to “promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term – in other words, the knowledge of God”.

Find out more information about the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews.

Iconology seeks an approach to cultural history by studying the image. To accomplish this, one must first master and draw upon a wide variety of disciplines, as Panofsky had, among which history, literature or theology usually stand out. However, as we propose in this symposium, interdisciplinarity is not necessarily limited to the humanities.

Despite the time that has elapsed since Panofsky published his discipline-defining works, a real integration has not always been achieved between Art History and the rest of the disciplines. In this period, too, Art History – as the study of the image – has expanded to include Visual Culture Studies. Sometimes understood as a methodological imposition, interdisciplinary interaction has often been superficially resolved.

Faced with this problem and the difficulty of implementing it, we propose a theoretical topic to reflect on the scope of interdisciplinarity, which in no case should be understood as a product of disciplinary pluralism. It opposes, therefore, other relational categories, such as multi-disciplinarity, in which two or more disciplines cooperate, but without achieving methodological integration.

On the contrary, the aim of this symposium is to promote genuine interrelationships between disciplines for the study of the image. Concretely, we propose an approach that addresses both the meaning of the image and its cultural function in different contexts, from innovative perspectives. Such innovative perspectives include reflecting on gender, which is proposed as transdisciplinary and, consequently, can be taken into account in each of the topics.

Six topics have been suggested, one of a theoretical nature and five thematic axes, in which the image has to support the construction of the different discourses (historical, political, ideological, archaeological, etc) in each of them. However, we proposed some flexibility between the topics, to allow the correct implementation of the method. According to the disciplines that have been integrated in the studies of the image, some papers, at the proposal of their author/s, will have a place in several topics, that can even be reorganized according to the papers received.

The symposium will be held at the Facultat de Geografia i Història de la Universitat de València. Depending on the health situation, the symposium would be organised on-site and online.

Programme.

Registration for the Fellowship Day hosted by the BSRC and IBANS is now open.

The event brings together external funders, current fellowship holders and colleagues from a range of Units who support the submission of fellowship applications.

There will be a CV surgery, where small groups will discuss CVs with a senior member of academic staff, time for Q&As, and the opportunity to meet with one of the funders via individual appointments.

This event will be of particular interest to PhD students and PDRAs, but anyone is welcome to attend. Please register at this link where you will find the full agenda for the day.

From Grinding to Ignition: Opportunities of Solid-State Chemistry in Green Chemistry and Materials Science

Tomislav Friśčić (Department of Chemistry, McGill University)

Abstract

This presentation will outline our group’s recent advances in using solid-state reactivity for the development of cleaner, safer synthetic methodologies and materials designs. In particular, it will provide an overview of the emergence of mechanochemistry, i.e. chemical transformations induced by mechanical agitation such as grinding, milling, or extrusion, as a uniquely general solventless synthetic methodology that can also provide access to novel reactivity and molecules.[1]

We will also show how focusing on the mechanistic aspects of mechanochemical reactions, and in particular the use of methodologies for real-time and in situ monitoring of milling processes,[2] can lead to advances in the fundamental understanding and prediction of structures and thermodynamic stabilities of advanced materials, such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).[3,4] Specifically, we will show how mechanistic investigations of mechanochemical reactions led to the discovery of simple guidelines to design MOFs with controllable stability, based on established or readily accessible descriptors of molecular stability.[5]

Finally, we will use our studies of MOF stability and energetics as a springboard to highlight a potential new application of this class of materials for developing a new type of greener and uniquely tuneable aerospace fuels based on solid-state designs.[6]

References
[1] Friśčić et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2020, 59, 1018; [2] Friśčić et al. Nature Chem. 2013, 5, 66; [3] Akimbekov et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 7952; [4] Arhangelskis et al. Chem. Mater. 2019, 31, 3777; [5] Novendra et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 21720; [6] Titi et al. Sci. Adv. 2019, 5, eaav9044.

Roast your Supervisor is a Research Events series organised by the ModCon Research Group. At this event, Dr Anindya Raychaudhuri and Zehra Kazmi will present: ‘Vertigo and Affect Theory’.

The series ‘Roast your Supervisor’ will give a platform to School of English staff to present their recent research to the School community.

There is, however, a twist to these events: following the presenter’s presentation, they will be grilled by one of their own PhD students about the topic and their research.

This turns a conversational situation which most of us are used to – the supervisee explaining themselves and their research to their supervisor – on its head.

Naturally, it would also be encouraged for the audience to ask some critical questions and participate as actively as possible.

The events will take place on MS Teams on a fortnightly basis on Wednesdays at 5.30pm and they will be free to attend for anyone interested.

Please e-mail Sam Haddow (jsfh@st-andrews.ac.uk) or Sandro Eich (se56@st-andrews.ac.uk) with any questions or to be added to the MS Teams channel.

This semester’s Andrew Lang Lecture will be given by Dr Sarah Dunnigan of the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures at the University of Edinburgh.

Principal Professor Sally Mapstone will introduce the event and Dr Katie Garner of the School of English will facilitate the Q&A and provide the vote of thanks.

The lecture series is given in honour of Andrew Lang (1844 to 1912), an anthropologist, folklorist, classicist, poet, historian, and famed compiler of folktales.

Email tsadmin@st-andrews.ac.uk to book a space.

Silke Zoller is an assistant professor of history at Kennesaw State University. She holds a Ph.D. from Temple University and a M.A. from Tuebingen University, Germany. Silke has researched counterterrorism history in postdoctoral fellowships at the Clements Center for National Security and the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding.

The Gifford Lectures (2021-2022) will be delivered by Oliver O’Donovan, Professor Emeritus of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh and Honorary Professor at St Andrews. This year, the lecture series will take place online via Microsoft Teams. Please note that a Teams link will be circulated later in October to registered attendees.

The lecture series, entitled ‘The Disappearance of Ethics’, will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5.30pm starting on Tuesday 26 October 2021 and ending on Thursday 11 November 2021:

26 October The missing object: the good
2 November The missing agent: the person
4 November Creation and the recovery of reality
9 November Law and the recovery of history
11 November Spirit and the recovery of agency

Attendance is free and open to the public. We ask you to register online so we can keep track of numbers. Please register by booking tickets below.

Any questions can be directed to Dr Robyn Boeré on reb8@st-Andrews.ac.uk.

The prestigious Gifford Lectureships were established by Adam Lord Gifford (1820 to 1887), a senator of the College of Justice in Scotland. The purpose of Lord Gifford’s bequest to the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews and Aberdeen was to sponsor lectures to “promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term – in other words, the knowledge of God”.

Find out more information about the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews.

Dr Julienne Obadia
University of Cambridge

Title: Paying in Processing Time – The Contract Complex, Polyamory, and the Relational Production of Unrelationality in American Late Liberalism

Abstract: TBA

The ‘inclusive practice’ support group is designed to assist and support colleagues in their endeavours to design an inclusive curriculum, adopt inclusive pedagogical practices and any activity designed to contribute to an ‘inclusive’ St Andrews (list is not exhaustive).

The group will:
* Provide a dedicated space for discussion about resources (academic literature, tool kits, online resources) which pertain to inclusive pedagogy and/or practice, to help staff up skill, enhance, and refine inclusive pedagogical approaches.
* Provide a space for staff (cross-disciplinary) to communicate and collaborate.
* Provide a safe place for staff to ‘trouble-shoot’ issues collectively.
All staff (both professional service staff and academics) are welcome to join and contribute to the support group.

The support group will be held on a reoccurring basis (every six weeks). The first support group will be held on the 29th October, 14.30pm-16.00pm.

The first support group will take the proposed format:
* Welcome and introduction
* Discussing the pre-circulated resources/literature – resource for first support group
* Trouble shooting any issues/concerns or talking points raised by the group — attendees will be invited to raise topics or issues they wish to discuss or get support with, for collective brainstorming.

The pre-circulated resources will pertain to a range of themes, including but not restricted to:
* Inclusive assessment practices e.g. introducing choice
* Inclusive theory
* Accessibility
* Diversity and representation
* Inclusive language
* Pedagogical styles and approaches e.g. flipped classrooms

The Gifford Lectures (2021-2022) will be delivered by Oliver O’Donovan, Professor Emeritus of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh and Honorary Professor at St Andrews. This year, the lecture series will take place online via Microsoft Teams. Please note that a Teams link will be circulated later in October to registered attendees.

The lecture series, entitled ‘The Disappearance of Ethics’, will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5.30pm starting on Tuesday 26 October 2021 and ending on Thursday 11 November 2021:

26 October The missing object: the good
28 October The missing frontier: time
4 November Creation and the recovery of reality
9 November Law and the recovery of history
11 November Spirit and the recovery of agency

Attendance is free and open to the public. We ask you to register online so we can keep track of numbers. Please register by booking tickets below.

Any questions can be directed to Dr Robyn Boeré on reb8@st-Andrews.ac.uk.

The prestigious Gifford Lectureships were established by Adam Lord Gifford (1820 to 1887), a senator of the College of Justice in Scotland. The purpose of Lord Gifford’s bequest to the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews and Aberdeen was to sponsor lectures to “promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term – in other words, the knowledge of God”.

Find out more information about the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews.

This event is the launch event for the 2021-2022 cycle of the Elizabeth Garrett Mentoring Programme, established in 2017 to support women in reaching senior academic roles through the development of their leadership capabilities. Led by the Principal, the programme seeks to partner women in, or aspiring to, academic leadership roles with a senior mentor.

The programme is open to all women in academic roles who are post-probationary and at Senior Lecturer grade 8 or above (or equivalent research grade), including professors. All eligible mentees and prospective mentors (mentors may be of any gender) are warmly invited to attend.

The event will include an address from the Principal alongside mentee and mentor speakers, followed by a Q&A session. Attendees are welcome to bring their lunch.

If you would like to attend the launch event, please register your interest by emailing egmentoring@st-andrews.ac.uk.

The Centre for Syrian studies together with MECACS Presents – The Question of Religion in the Syrian Constitutions

This lecture will discuss the question of religion within all the Syrian constitutions since the first ever attempt to write a constitution for Syria exactly a century ago and until the current constitution. It will go beyond the constitutional provisions and examines the debates and discussions surrounding the question of religion as recorded in the debates of the constitutional assemblies and in the public debate. It will discuss how the debate around the question of religion took on different dimensions depending on the context of the time, and the social and political climate in which the constitutional argument took place.

Dr Rim Turkmani is the principal investigator of the LSE based research project Legitimacy and citizenship in the Arab world project.
She is also the research director of the Syria conflict research programme at the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Her policy-oriented research work focuses on the political economy and governance in Syria and the local drivers of the conflict and their relation to external dynamics. She is member of the Women Advisory Board to the UN special envoy to Syria.

To register – Email irevents@st-andrews.ac.uk

Writing in a foreign language, a language which is not one’s so-called ‘native’ language, has become a widely disseminated practice. Through processes of mobility and migration, many authors have contributed to crafting and expressing what Steven G. Kellman coins the ‘translingual imagination’. How might multilingual creative writing operate as a hospitable space within which to explore plural identities? What role can writing workshops play in welcoming multilingual experience? This round table will bring together four creative writing scholars and practitioners with experience and expertise in plurilingual writing practices. They will reflect on multilingual writing as a way to generate innovative creative practices — whether it be through self-translation, collaborative writing, digital bilingual tools or plurilingual performances — and to create hospitable spaces, which acknowledge plurality — and therefore singularity.

The Gifford Lectures (2021-2022) will be delivered by Oliver O’Donovan, Professor Emeritus of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh and Honorary Professor at St Andrews. This year, the lecture series will take place online via Microsoft Teams. Please note that a Teams link will be circulated later in October to registered attendees.

The lecture series, entitled ‘The Disappearance of Ethics’, will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5.30pm starting on Tuesday 26 October 2021 and ending on Thursday 11 November 2021:

26 October The missing object: the good
28 October The missing frontier: time
2 November The missing agent: the person
9 November Law and the recovery of history
11 November Spirit and the recovery of agency

Attendance is free and open to the public. We ask you to register online so we can keep track of numbers. Please register by booking tickets below.

Any questions can be directed to Dr Robyn Boeré on reb8@st-Andrews.ac.uk.

The prestigious Gifford Lectureships were established by Adam Lord Gifford (1820 to 1887), a senator of the College of Justice in Scotland. The purpose of Lord Gifford’s bequest to the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews and Aberdeen was to sponsor lectures to “promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term – in other words, the knowledge of God”.

Find out more information about the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews.

This is the Anglo-Catalan Society’s annual conference. The audience is made up of academics working in the field of Catalan Studies as well as members of the public interested in any aspect of Catalan culture.

Join us in Parliament Hall on the 6th of November to celebrate the conclusion of our long standing lectura dantis and take part in the global celebrations of this ‘anno dantesco’, marking the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death. The day will feature lectures, readings and a rich exhibition of manuscripts, rare books and original contemporary materials inspired by Dante. For further details and the full programme, please visit the LDA website.

The Gifford Lectures (2021-2022) will be delivered by Oliver O’Donovan, Professor Emeritus of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh and Honorary Professor at St Andrews. This year, the lecture series will take place online via Microsoft Teams. Please note that a Teams link will be circulated later in October to registered attendees.

The lecture series, entitled ‘The Disappearance of Ethics’, will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5.30pm starting on Tuesday 26 October 2021 and ending on Thursday 11 November 2021:

26 October The missing object: the good
28 October The missing frontier: time
2 November The missing agent: the person
4 November Creation and the recovery of reality
11 November Spirit and the recovery of agency

Attendance is free and open to the public. We ask you to register online so we can keep track of numbers. Please register by booking tickets below.

Any questions can be directed to Dr Robyn Boeré on reb8@st-Andrews.ac.uk.

The prestigious Gifford Lectureships were established by Adam Lord Gifford (1820 to 1887), a senator of the College of Justice in Scotland. The purpose of Lord Gifford’s bequest to the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews and Aberdeen was to sponsor lectures to “promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term – in other words, the knowledge of God”.

Find out more information about the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews.

In this Roast your Supervisor research events, organised by the ModCon Research Group, Professor Emma Sutton and Ellie Mitchell will present ‘Recent research on Virginia Woolf and Music’.

The series ‘Roast your Supervisor’ will give a platform to School of English staff to present their recent research to the School community.

There is, however, a twist to these events: Following the presenter’s presentation, they will be grilled by one of their own PhD students about the topic and their research.

This turns a conversational situation which most of us are used to – namely the supervisee explaining themselves and their research to their supervisor – on its head.

Naturally, it would also be encouraged for the audience to ask some critical questions and participate as actively as possible.

The events will take place on MS Teams on a fortnightly basis on Wednesdays at 5.30pm and they will be free to attend for anyone interested.

Please e-mail Sam Haddow (jsfh@st-andrews.ac.uk) or Sandro Eich (se56@st-andrews.ac.uk) with any questions or to be added to the MS Teams channel.

The Gifford Lectures (2021-2022) will be delivered by Oliver O’Donovan, Professor Emeritus of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Edinburgh and Honorary Professor at St Andrews. This year, the lecture series will take place online via Microsoft Teams. Please note that a Teams link will be circulated later in October to registered attendees.

The lecture series, entitled ‘The Disappearance of Ethics’, will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5.30pm starting on Tuesday 26 October 2021 and ending on Thursday 11 November 2021:

26 October The missing object: the good
28 October The missing frontier: time
2 November The missing agent: the person
4 November Creation and the recovery of reality
9 November Law and the recovery of history

Attendance is free and open to the public. We ask you to register online so we can keep track of numbers. Please register by booking tickets below.

Any questions can be directed to Dr Robyn Boeré on reb8@st-Andrews.ac.uk.

The prestigious Gifford Lectureships were established by Adam Lord Gifford (1820 to 1887), a senator of the College of Justice in Scotland. The purpose of Lord Gifford’s bequest to the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews and Aberdeen was to sponsor lectures to “promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term – in other words, the knowledge of God”.

Find out more information about the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews.

Dr Brian Alleyne
University of London, Goldsmiths

Title: Technological speculations and explorations in odd places, or, how to be a geek in the Global South

Abstract: Except for industrialising Asia, the Global South is not generally associated with deep innovation in digital technologies: research recognises Southern innovation in terms of improvisation around affordance considering material derivation, but fundamental tech development is seen as happening in the North. In this talk I challenge this construction by exploring geek culture outside global North centred national silos and ethnocentric frameworks. I offer first the outline of a surprising narrative history of computing in the Caribbean, before discussing two cases. The first case is built around a thematic ‘distant reading’ of speculative fiction written by authors identified with the English and Spanish Caribbean. The second case addresses efforts by geeks from Cuba and Trinidad-Tobago to enter the supposedly lucrative field of digital commodity production. Alongside the substantive presentation, I highlight several methodological issues around ‘fieldwork’ that I had to confront because travel was impossible owing to the pandemic.

Institute of Middle East, Central Asia and Caucasus Studies presents Civil-military coordination to save civilian lives while defeating the Islamic State in Iraq

Between 2015 and 2017, cooperation between the Iraqi government, the United States, the European Union, individual European states, the international military coalition to defeat ISIS, and the United Nations effectively ended the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate in Iraq. Less well known is the extensive, unusual, and largely successful civil-military coordination by these same players aimed at saving civilian lives during the rolling land battles, providing assistance to internally displaced persons, and returning IDPs to their homes in safety and with dignity. Given the right conditions, this example could serve as a template for internatioanl civil-military coordination in other conflict areas.

Ambassador Douglas A. Silliman is president of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He previously served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2016-19 and U.S. ambassador to Kuwait from 2014-16. From 2013-14, he served as a senior advisor in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in the U.S. Department of State, working on Iraq issues and the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. Silliman was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq from 2012-13, minister counselor for political affairs in Baghdad from 2011-12, and deputy chief of mission in Ankara, Turkey from 2008-11. He joined the Department of State in 1984.Silliman served as director and deputy director of the Department of State’s Office of Southern European Affairs, as political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Jordan, and as the regional officer for the Middle East in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism. He worked as a political officer in Islamabad, Pakistan, in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs, as the desk officer for Lebanon, and as a staff assistant to the assistant secretary for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs. Silliman began his career as a visa officer in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and a political officer in Tunis, Tunisia.

Email irevents@st-andrews.ac.uk to register

Prof Jenny Huberman
University of Missouri, Kansas City

Title: Moments are Still the Elements of Profit – The App Economy and the Digital Extraction of Surplus-Value

Abstract: Over the last two decades, while the ranks of the under and unemployed have swelled, and as the commercial demand for more precise data has skyrocketed, the smartphone task and gaming app industry has exploded. Likened to a portable Mechanical Turk, or a veritable “data enrichment” industry, apps such as Spare5, Taps for Money, InboxDollars, Cash Karma, Mistplay, Bingo Box, Solitude Cube, Swagbucks, Survey Junkie, Lifepoints, PrizeRebel, and TreasureTrooper, to name just a few, are advertised to e-commerce and AI companies as a way to get the most direct access to potential consumers, and as way to gain a “cost-effective” leg up in the “arms race in training data.” They are also presented to consumers or users as a means to “win” or “earn some money by performing simple tasks irrespective of the place where you are.” Companies propose that by downloading these apps onto smartphones users can render their “free time” economically productive. In this talk, I explore how the smartphone app industry is facilitating the digitized extraction of surplus-value. I argue that it is precisely by blurring the boundaries between work and leisure, and in many cases, “gamifying” tasks, that the app economy, which is inextricably tied to the platform economy, is able to perpetuate and extend a classic form of capitalist expropriation into the most intimate reaches of daily life. Drawing upon an analysis of some of the most popular smartphone “earning” apps, I will demonstrate that although much has changed in the era of digital capitalism, moments, as Marx recognized long ago, are still the elements of profit.

Title to be confirmed

https://andryjmborys.weebly.com/

In this Roast your Supervisor research events, organised by the ModCon Research Group, Professor Gill Plain & Michela Esposito will present ‘Technology, disability and masculinity after WW2’.

The series ‘Roast your Supervisor’ will give a platform to School of English staff to present their recent research to the School community.

There is, however, a twist to these events: Following the presenter’s presentation, they will be grilled by one of their own PhD students about the topic and their research.

This turns a conversational situation which most of us are used to — namely the supervisee explaining themselves and their research to their supervisor — on its head.

Naturally, it would also be encouraged for the audience to ask some critical questions and participate as actively as possible.

The events will take place on MS Teams on a fortnightly basis on Wednesdays at 5.30pm and they will be free to attend for anyone interested.

Please e-mail Sam Haddow (jsfh@st-andrews.ac.uk) or Sandro Eich (se56@st-andrews.ac.uk) with any questions or to be added to the MS Teams channel.