Month: November 2015

Doctoral & Graduate scholarships (22 January deadlines) – Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford

DOCTORAL & GRADUATE SCHOLARSHIPS

The Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford is offering graduate scholarships for students wishing to pursue doctoral – DPhil – studies in an international and interdisciplinary centre of excellence in (comparative) social policy as well as social intervention and evaluation research.

We are conducting cutting-edge research in a wide range of areas. Our research portfolio is organised in three clusters: Oxford Institute of Social Policy (OISP), Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention (CEBI) and Oxford Centre for Population Research (OXPOP) (see http://www.spi.ox.ac.uk/research.html).

OISP is inviting DPhil proposals in the following areas: family and family policies; educational inequalities and educational policies; labour market policies; poverty, social inequalities and social mobility; social policy in developing countries; policies of social protection; welfare state change in comparative perspective as well as politics of social policy in rich democracies.

CEBI is inviting DPhil proposals in the following areas: evaluation methodology in social intervention; alcohol and drug misuse; child mental health; antisocial behaviour in children and youth; parenting and family interventions; HIV prevention; AIDS affected children; HIV positive children; sleep problems and cross-cultural adaptation of interventions.

OXPOP is inviting DPhil proposals in demography and social policy (with a special focus on Asia).

We offer doctoral students a unique graduate programme tailored to their individual needs. Our doctoral students are supervised and supported by internationally renowned academics. In addition, we offer a large and diverse range of seminars, workshops and advanced training opportunities in order to further enhance postgraduate research experience. Most of our doctoral students find jobs in leading research universities, international organisations or government departments.

We invite applications from outstanding graduates in Demography, Economics, Political Science, Psychology, Social Policy and Social Work and Sociology, or closely related fields. We are interested in candidates with proposals in the areas of our research expertise and interest. You can learn more about our supervisory expertise here: http://www.spi.ox.ac.uk/people/academic-and-research-staff.html.

We have the following scholarships available for entry in October 2016:

· The Barnett Scholarship

· The Centenary Scholarship

· Barnett House-Nuffield Joint Scholarship

All applicants that apply by Friday 22 January 2016 will also be considered for the University’s flagship Clarendon Scholarship Fund. The department also has access to additional pooled ESRC scholarships.

For information about the various scholarships and details of how to apply, visit our website: http://www.spi.ox.ac.uk/study-with-us/funding.html.

The deadline for scholarship applications is Friday 22 January 2016 (12 noon UK time).

For enquiries, please contact scholarships.

Sarah Vincent

Communications and Alumni Relations Officer

Department of Social Policy and Intervention

University of Oxford

Barnett House, 32 Wellington Square, Oxford

OX1 2ER

01865 270262


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The Development and Alumni Relations System (DARS) provides a common source of data on all alumni, donors, students, staff and friends of the collegiate University. Our long-term intention behind this shared resource is to improve mutual understanding, by enhancing the quality of our communication at all levels and developing a better appreciation of our relationship with alumni, donors and friends. Please see database.

151126 Department scholarship ad.docx

Call for Papers: 2016 Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and Mind Association
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The Aristotelian Society

Call For Papers

Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society & the Mind Association 2016

8 to 10 July 2016 at Cardiff University

About

The Joint Session is a three-day conference in philosophy that is held annually during the summer by the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association. It has taken place at nearly every major university across the United Kingdom and in Ireland. Since 1910, the Joint Session has grown to become the largest gathering of philosophers in the country, attracting prestigious UK and international speakers working in a broad range of philosophical areas. Inaugurated by the incoming President of the Mind Association, the Joint Session includes symposia, open and postgraduate sessions, and a range of satellite conferences.

The 90th Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association will be held at Cardiff University from 8 to 10 July 2016.

This year’s local organiser is Nicholas Shackel, and the official Cardiff website can be found here.

Grantham Research Institute ORA Vacancy

The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE is looking to hire a temporary hourly-paid occasional research assistant (ORA) to begin employment as soon as possible.

Working with Teevrat Garg from GRI and collaborators Paul Novosad (Dartmouth College), Sam Asher (Oxford University) the expected amount of work will be 40-60 hours over 8 – 12 weeks.

Project Description: A cornerstone of development policy is the construction of roads and connecting far flung areas that were traditionally devoid of cost-effective access to central markets. While some evidence exists on the economic benefits of road construction, little causal evidence exists on the ecological footprint of road construction. We propose to use a regression discontinuity design in India where road construction was targeted to villages based on population cut-offs to estimate the casual effect of road construction on forest cover.

Key Tasks: The ORA will be required to merge the key data sets and run a number of different regressions per the instructions of the researcher and collaborators.

The ideal candidate will be a Master’s or PhD student who is well versed with STATA including experience working with multiple data sets. Theoretical knowledge of regression discontinuity designs and fixed effects based regressions is key and practical experience with such research designs is strongly desirable. Experience with forestry data and Indian data is preferred, but not essential.

The hourly rate is between £17.50 and £20 (including holiday pay) depending on previous experience and qualifications.

If you are interested please send an up to date CV with details of any work experience and relevant skills and a brief email outlining why you would be suitable for the post to gri.hr (Quoting Reference TG02/2015) by 4pm on Friday 4th December 2015. Please feel free to pass this advert on to interested friends and colleagues.

Call For Abstracts: The 2016 Cambridge Graduate Conference in Ancient Philosophy (18-19 March 2016)

We invite proposals for papers to be given at an interdisciplinary conference on the theme ‘Archai and Geneseis: Theorising Origins in Ancient Philosophy’, to take place in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, on 18-19 March 2016.

One of the wellsprings of philosophy is the contemplation of ‘what is first’ – that is, the reflection upon the original state from which things arose and on the forces that initiate and govern their coming-to-be. The notion of ‘origins’ was a central theme in ancient philosophy from the Presocratics to the Hellenistic schools. Our purpose is to examine how philosophers interpreted or made significant use of the concepts of genesis and coming-to-be in a wide variety of contexts, including (but without being restricted to):

• the beginning of the cosmos;
• the origin of life;
• the creation of mankind;
• the origins of language, knowledge and human society, and • the emergence of philosophy, of philosophical communities and of particular trends within ancient philosophy.

We are interested in exploring the various ways in which origins are thematised in ancient philosophy. This question is open to a large number of approaches and can be addressed within several branches of ancient philosophy, such as ethics, epistemology, physics and metaphysics. Moreover, it can also be related to other humanistic disciplines, such as ancient history and literature – for which reason we hope to welcome students and academics throughout the humanities and thus create an interdisciplinary dialogue across various fields in the study of classical antiquity and beyond.

We invite proposals from graduate students and early career researchers (within three years of completion of their degree) for papers of approximately 3,000-3,500 words. Please submit abstracts as email attachments to cambridgeancientphilosophy@gmail.com. Abstracts should be submitted as .pdf files and should not exceed 500 words. Please write ‘Conference Abstract Submission’ in the subject line of your email and include in the body of your email your name, departmental affiliation, email address, and the title of your paper (as well as the year in which the PhD was awarded in the case of early career researchers). Abstracts should be prepared for blind review, so please ensure that your abstract is free from any identifying personal details.

The submission deadline is Friday 5th February 2016. Successful applicants will be notified by Friday 12th February and will be asked to submit the final draft of their papers by Friday 4th March.

For more information please visit the conference website
(http://originsinancientphilosophy.wordpress.com) and Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/CGCAPhil/)

The 2016 CGCAP Organising Committee
CGCAP Poster.pdf

CFA Experimental Philosophy UK

The 7th Conference of Experimental Philosophy Group UK

The 2016 Ratio Conference

University of Reading, 23–24 April 2016

Deadline for Submissions: 15 January 2016

Experimental Philosophy Group UK invites the submission of abstracts for posters and papers to be presented at their upcoming conference. We welcome contributions from researchers (from all disciplines) who are engaged in or interested in the investigation of philosophical topics using empirical methods.

We especially encourage contributions that concern this year’s main theme, ‘Experimental Philosophy as Applied Philosophy’. This event aims to encourage a greater focus upon the capacity of experimental philosophy to be applied philosophy. We will bring together philosophers, psychologists and social scientists in order to bring out the great contribution that experimental philosophy and associated fields have to make to real world issues. The ability of experimental philosophy to inform debate and public discourse about many and various important social issues is under-appreciated and under-exercised.

Despite this focus, all high-quality contributions from the wider field of experimental philosophy are welcome. This may include submissions presenting recently completed experimental work, engaging with the work of this year’s keynote speakers, proposing new experimental work, discussing existing empirical studies, introducing novel approaches or raising methodological questions. Submissions are encouraged from all levels of academia.

Abstracts of up to 500 words are to be sent as PDF or Word documents to experimentalphilosophyuk by 15th January 2016. All abstracts should be prepared for anonymous review. The subject line of the email should read ‘SUBMISSION [YOUR NAME]’. In the body of the email please state your name, a_liation and in which category (talk or poster) you wish your submission to be considered. Those whose abstracts for talks are not accepted will be automatically considered for a poster. Presenters should be prepared to obtain funding from their home department, or to fund themselves.

The conference will result in a special issue of Ratio and we hope to propose a special issue to the Journal of Applied Philosophy. Selected papers from the event will be considered for inclusion in these issues.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

Helen de Cruz, Robyn RepkoWaller, Meena Dhanda, James Hampton.

CFA.pdf

Library newsletter for the Philosophy Department November 2015

Here is this month’s newsletter for the Philosophy Department

From the LSE Library

Heather Dawson

h.dawson

http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/collections/subjectGuides/philosophy/home.aspx

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Library Update – November 2015

LSE Library celebrates Customer Service Excellence Award

LSE Library was recently awarded the Customer Service Excellence industry standard (CSE).

Throughout 2014/15 staff in the Library have been consulting with students as customers of library services ensuring that the services are focused on their needs. As a result, policies and procedures have been revised together with a re-launch of front line services whilst focusing on the 5 core criteria of the CSE framework: customer insight, the culture of the organisation, access and information, delivery and timeliness and quality of service.

The Assessment report highlighted the impressive high level of corporate commitment and leadership shown to putting the customer at the heart of service delivery, which is being embraced by all staff, with an excellent training programme to underline the vision and values. It went on to say that Reception, Enquiries and Roaming Services; Reader Services and the Academic Support Librarians are examples of initiatives which demonstrate a significant contribution being made to the overall improvement of the customer contact experience.

Nicola Wright, Director of Library Services said “This has been a real team achievement and I am very proud of the team and the partnership we have with our students.”

Suffragette: the making of the film

On Thursday 5th November LSE library organised an event in conjunction with Pathe Films to coincide with the release of the film Suffragette, inspired by The Women’s Library collection @LSE.

Suffragette Director Sarah Gavron, Producer Faye Ward and Historical Consultant Elizabeth Crawford were in conversation in front of a 200 strong audience of LSE staff and students, then taking questions from the floor. We had a great turn out, despite it being a very rainy afternoon and there was a lively discussion too.

Here is some feedback we have received:

“The panel was top notch and a real treat. Having questions prepared beforehand was good and helped to lead the conversation.”

“I was hugely impressed by the panel and also very much enjoyed the images from the women’s library”

Thank you to everyone that came along to make the event such a success.

For more information on LSE Library special collections on suffragettes see the Emily Wilding Davison collection. Online exhibition

Data Management Planning Online Tool

DMPonline, the Digital Curation Center’s platform for writing Data Management Plans, now includes LSE specific guidance linking researchers to appropriate school policies, guidelines, and support.

DMPonline includes templates for all main UK research funders, and links to their data management requirements. Plans can be exported into a number of formats for submission as part of a funding application.

DMPonline also now has a template for LSE taught master’s students to write a Data Management Plan for their thesis, thereby hopefully avoiding last minute data availability or research ethics issues.

Guidance on using DMPonline is available from Library RDM pages. The data library is available for consultation and review of plans.

NEW RESOURCE: SAGE Research Methods Online

Do you teach research methods to students? Are you looking for good resources to include in your lectures or to help guide students preparing their dissertations?

The LSE Library is now providing access to Sage Research Methods which should help with this.
SAGE Research Methods contains over 175,000 pages of SAGE’s book, journal, encyclopaedia and video content.

It is especially designed to support students at all stages of the research process – from advice on framing good research questions to basic literature searching techniques, analysing and writing up results. Dictionary entries can offer clear definitions of specific methods and provide references for further reading. These can then be followed up with concrete examples given in the book chapters and journal articles.

Coverage includes both qualitative and quantitative methods. Materials relating to web based research methods are available. An interesting feature is the Methods map. This provides a visual representation or taxonomy of different types of research enabling students to easily explore their inter-relationships. Teachers can register to create their own methods lists of key resources which can then be shared with students.

Sage Research Methods can be accessed via Library Search from any location. Access via http://librarysearch.lse.ac.uk/44LSE_VU1:CSCOP_ALL:44LSE_ALMA_DS61154379810002021
using your LSE network username and password.

If you need any help using this new resource do contact your Academic Support Librarian. We can also arrange bespoke training from SAGE.

Training: Accessing UN and League of Nations material

The library has a unique and extensive collection of United Nations and League of Nations material.

Every child knows that the League of Nations is only a bluff’

‘A bench of mockers and hypocrites’ wrote George Bernard Shaw in a pamphlet published by the Fabian Society in 1929. He was expressing public reaction to his attendance at a conference of the League in 1928. On the contrary, Shaw felt that it could be a ‘genuinely international public service’ heralding a new era in world government and peace.

Make your own assessment of the impact of the organisation by attending

Our specialist training session on the 4th December will show you how to find and locate materials effectively from the LoN and its successor the United Nations.

A study of the history of the League of Nations can offer a deeper understanding of the evolution of international relations. did you know that the League was also instrumental in moves to outlaw slavery worldwide and to prevent the trafficking of women and children in the interwar period and its documents and reports offer insight into the extent of these human rights abuses at this time. Other areas of concern include refugee crises, repatriation and resettlement; problems which continue to the present day . The League was also one of the earliest intergovernmental organisations to collect economic and social statistics from nations worldwide and as such a study of its resources can often benefit economic and social historians. And those considering the history of disarmament and scientific policy

Find out more by booking your place at the training session

If you cannot attend but would like to find out more do contact me

British Undergraduate Philosophy Society Conference

LSE Philosophers!

I’m writing to invite you to the British Undergraduate Philosophy Society Conference on the 21st and 22nd November at the LSE!

On the Saturday, we will be joined by our keynote speaker Prof. Timothy Williamson from the University of Oxford (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Williamson). Williamson is one of the greatest analytic philosophers of our time, renowned for his work in logic, language, epistemology and metaphysics. So if you would like to meet Williamson, and ask difficult questions about just how much metaphysics he’s willing to invoke in defence of classical logic, please join us!

On the Sunday, there will be a panel discussion. It’s on the implications of neuroscience for the philosophy of law. I will be speaking, alongside Ella Langham (LSE), Farbod Akhlaghi-Ghaffarokh (President of BUPS, St Andrews) and Achilleas Sarantaris (President of UCL Philosophy Society, UCL).

There will also be a selection of talks from speakers who were accepted into my wonderful Journal, the British Journal of Undergraduate Philosophy. There will be talks on induction, time, human rights, epistemology and more…

If you would like to buy a copy of the Journal please select this option when getting your ticket.

For the full programme, and to book your ticket, please go to http://www.bups.org/forthcoming-conference/

To popularise the event on the Facebooks, please share the following with your friends https://www.facebook.com/events/1017589118320949/

The conference will take place in the Graham Wallace Room on the Fifth Floor of the Old Building.

Best Wishes,

Geoff Keeling

Editor in Chief

British Journal of Undergraduate Philosophy

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British Academy Event Invitation – Theology and The Tragic: A Debate Revisited, Tue 1 Dec

Free Public Event

Theology and The Tragic: A Debate Revisited

Tuesday 1 December 2015, 6-7.15pm

The British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH

Held at the British Academy and chaired by Professor Philip Alexander FBA, University of Manchester this lecture given by former Archbishop of Canterbury Revd Lord Rowan Williams FBA will explore the relationship between tragic drama and the study of theology.

Studies of tragic drama still refer from time to time to the argument that a theological/religious worldview is inherently anti-tragic. The debate has drawn in figures as diverse as Helen Gardner, George Steiner and Terry Eagleton, as well as theologians like Donald MacKinnon. Recent studies of tragedy have complicated the issue further by questioning essentialist models of tragic drama or narrative, while a growing number of theologians have made use of dramatic categories. This lecture will attempt to see how the discussion has moved on, and how newer accounts of the tragic suggest different theological possibilities.

About the speaker:

· Rowan Williams is Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012. He is the author of a number of books on the frontiers of theology, philosophy and literary studies, as well as several volumes of poetry. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Literature.

More information can be found in the flyer below and do pass this onto any members of faculty or students who may be interested in attending.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Many thanks

Freddie Cocker

Press and Communications Intern

British Academy

Freddie Cocker

Press and Communications Intern

The British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH

Tel: +44 (0)20 7969 5263

Email: f.cocker

The British Academy – for the humanities and social sciences – is a registered charity (no. 233176).

For more information please visit: www.britishacademy.ac.uk or follow us on @britac_news.

Keep up to date with events, news and funding opportunities by joining our mailing list

Commonwealth and International Student Christmas Weekend, 18-20 December 2015

Please find herewith details of our upcoming Commonwealth and International Student Christmas Weekend to your department. The event takes place from Friday 18 – Sunday 20 December, and students from other countries that are currently in Britain are welcome to join us for a chance to experience a typical British Christmas and to meet others who are studying away from home.

Highlights of the weekend include:

· A screening of "Queens of Syria", a documentary that follows the journey of Syrian refugee women to stage a new version of Euripides’ tragedy The Trojan Women in the Jordanian capital Amman.

· Nigerian author Chibundu Onuzo reading a selection of her work and talking about her experiences as a student in London and being the youngest female to sign to publishing giant Faber & Faber.

· A Christmas Carol Service in the Royal Chapel

· A Winter Trail through Windsor Great Park

· A traditional Christmas dinner – a visit from Father Christmas is almost guaranteed!

The registration fee for the weekend is £85, and this includes participation in all activities, food throughout the weekend and shared occupancy accommodation for two nights.

Further information can be found at www.cumberlandlodge.ac.uk/christmas .

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

With thanks and best wishes,

Janis

Janis Reeves
Co-ordinator, Cumberland Lodge Conference Programme
janisreeves
D 01784 497794

Cumberland Lodge
cumberlandlodge.ac.uk
twitter.com/cumberlandlodge
T 01784 432316
F 01784 497799
The Great Park
Windsor
Berkshire SL4 2HP
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Commonwealth and International Student Christmas Poster.pdf

Commonwealth and International Student Christmas Programme.pdf