Past event
This event has now been postponed. To be kept updated on when this will be reschedule for, please email events@bera.ac.uk.
Dystopian and utopian thinking can inform and influence the perceptions, experiences and hopes of Higher Education practitioners. The current ‘ground’ of curricular practice, the functionalised architecture of university environment, and the increasing shift towards technological bureaucracies are all operating to stymie the freedom, creativity and criticality of HE academics. The need for alternative, transformative and critical horizons to envisage a Higher Education of and for ‘hope’, is now essential. This event will offer delegates space, ideas, and practices that will hopefully translate in to ‘tactics for action’ for our respective HE environments.
As modes of enquiry, critique and praxis, dystopia and utopia can offer glimpses of higher education as a space of hope, higher education reconfigured as a site of possibility. This event is a call for utopian and critical dystopian engagement with higher education as a terrain of struggle, to explore the possibilities that philosophy, pedagogy and technology can offer for overcoming the political tourniquets of our contemporary environments.
The event is for all interested in higher education and other post compulsory domains of education including: higher education academics; college-based HE academics; informal educators; postgraduate/research students and community education practitioners.
| 9.00 | Registration | |||
| 9.30 | Introduction & Welcome Craig Hammond, Liverpool John Moores University, & Darren Webb, University of Sheffield |
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| 9.45 | Becoming Utopian: the Challenge(s) of Utopian Subjectivity in Dystopian Times Tom Moylan, University of Limerick |
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| 10.45 | Tea & coffee break | |||
| 11.00 | Panel discussion and Q&A Richard Hall,De Montfort University; Laurence Davis, University College Cork; Ibtisam Ahmed, University of Nottingham |
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| 12.00 | Lunch | |||
| Presentation Stream 1 | ||||
| Parallel Session 1 Chair: Darren Webb |
Parallel Session 2 Chair: Catherine Wilson |
Parallel Session 3 Chair: Craig Hammond |
Parallel Session 4 Chair: |
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| 12.45 | From Britney’s Work Bitch to the Employability Agenda: critical dystopian thinking on a compulsory English Literature Employability module Adam Stock |
Heterotopia and/or Utopia (in higher education) Aiden Pilling |
The Utopian Thought of Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin as the basis for a Critical Criminology that promotes Critical Citizenship David Hayes |
Towards a ‘Natural’ Curriculum: Preservice teachers’ perspectives of the tensions and contradictions in the use of outdoor learning pedagogies across the primary curriculum Avril Rowley |
| 13.05 | Teaching Values in Higher Education – Science of Living Vijayita Prajapati |
The Anarchist Academic: Reclaiming Our Subjectivity Andy Brogan |
Rethinking the role of employer involvement in HE provisions: the case study of Pearson Business School Iro Konstantinou & Elizabeth Miller |
Omitted pasts, permitted futures? Exploring the past, present and future spaces of the small, specialist arts college as potential alternative narratives for contemporary Higher Education Sarah-Jane Crowson |
| 13.25 | The Cracked Mirror: Lessons from literary fictional dystopias and utopias for re-imaging Higher Education Catherine Samiei |
Utopias in education: between learning about schools from the past and imagining the schools of tomorrow Cristina Popescu |
Navigating Utopia: Module Design for Critical Citizenship Kirsten Harris |
Avoiding a Dystopian Crisis within Secondary Education Jane Stirling |
| 13.45 | Discussion and Q&A |
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| 14.15 | Break and Refreshments | |||
| Presentation Stream 2 | ||||
| Parrallel Session 5 Chair: Darren Webb |
Parallel Session 6 Chair: Avril Rowley |
Parallel Session 7 Chair: Craig Hammond |
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| 14.30 | Total University!: A democratic utopian vision inspired by pragmatist play John Lean |
Working through pain: Performance and chronic pain in the everyday lived experience of an academic Catherine Wilkinson |
UtopiaS: Reimagining the reimagining of UK higher education Mollie Baker |
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| 14.50 | The Future is a Fucker John Maxwell |
50 Shades of Education Hina Suleman |
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| 15.10 | Overflowing Voids: Negation as Utopian Practice Nathaniel Coleman |
Reimagining the Conversations and Languages of Global and World Citizenship Education in Higher Education: Exploring Perspectives and Practices among Chinese Educational Policies, Academics and Students Arzhia Habibi |
Resisting cybernetic governance through grassroots alternatives: Implications for academic practice R. Firth & J. Preston |
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| 15.30 | Discussion and Q&A | |||
| 16.00 | Final comments & completion of evaluation forms | |||
The most recent Research Excellence Framework in 2014 confirmed our place as a world-leading university. The results demonstrated our research excellence across a range of disciplines, putting us in the top 10 per cent of all UK universities.
This event has now been postponed. To be kept updated on when this will be reschedule for, please email events@bera.ac.uk. This one day conference will bring together early career researchers...
All things higher education research, policy, and practice.
The BERA Early Career Researcher Network offers a limited amount of bursaries to the value of £75 towards travel for BERA Student Members only to most of our events. This has now been extended to...