Events – Newcastle University Postgraduate Forum

13th Annual Postgraduate Forum Conference

‘Individuals and Communities’

20th May 2016

Room 2.22, Research Beehive, Newcastle University

9.00 – 9.15	Tea and Coffee
	Panel 1 Chair: Lauren Emslie
9.15 – 9:45	George Scratcherd (University of Oxford) The four horsemen of the AME Church: ‘Great Men’ and the challenges of black church historiography.
9.45 – 10.15	James Mullen (Newcastle University) God, King, and the Land: The relationship between Neo-Assyrian Kings, their subjects and the God Aššur.
10.15 – 10.45	David Astbury (Newcastle University) Can path creation theory restore the agency of individuals and communities in the past?
10.45 – 11.15	Tom Whitfield (Newcastle University) “Wilkes and Liberty”—Punch bowls and the later-eighteenth-century Wilkite agitations.
11.15 – 11.30	Tea and Coffee
	Panel 2 Chair: Amy Shields
11.30 – 12.00	Mareike Ahlers (Newcastle University) All for One and One for All—Identifying heterarchial structures in Early Neolithic barrow building communities.
12.00 – 12.30	Henry Clarke (University of Leeds) Negotiating individual identities within the community in Central Spain, 2^nd century BC – 2^nd century AD.
12.30 – 1.00	Kate Caraway (University of Liverpool) Group size and community cohesion in Archaic Greece: Towards a methodology.
1.00 – 2.00	Lunch and poster session
	Panel 3 Chair: Lucy Cummings
2.00 – 2.30	John Bowman (Newcastle University) Derwentcote Forge Cottages: A steel making community in the Derwent Valley 1841-1891.
2.30 – 3.00	Lawrence Mills (University of Glasgow) Building the Old College
3.00 – 3.30	Alberto Cafaro (University of Pisa) Praefecti fabrum and Roman politics.
3.30 – 4.00	Andrew Marriott (Newcastle University) Entrenched Views. Accessing the people of the First World War through Material Culture
4.00 – 4.30	Tea and Coffee
4.30 – 5.30	Keynote: Dr Valentina Arena (UCL) ‘The Individual and the Community in Republican Political Thought’
5.45	Reception and prize giving (Student Common Room, Armstrong Building)

Exploring Classical and Historical Northumbria: Warkworth Castle

Dr. Susanna Phillippo will be continuing her ‘Exploring Classical and Historical Northumbria’ trips this Sunday (17th April) with a visit to Warkworth Castle and Hermitage.

Details are as follows:

Depart c. 12.10, return c. 18.05
Cost: £7.80 for transport
A visit to the impressive medieval Percy fortress in the scenic town of Warkworth.
• Picturesque town dominated by showpiece medieval castle, home to a number of key players in English history, notably the Percy family (the original ‘kings in the north’).
• Wars of the Roses, the English Civil War and several wars with Scotland(!) feature among the many historical events in which the castle and town played a part.
• Castle features in Shakespeare’s *Henry IV* plays: the scenes which he set here make use of elements from classical writers Plutarch and Virgil — we shall hear about these on site, and visit the exact locations!
• Unique 13th-century hermitage elaborately carved out of the solid stone of the river bank.

As with previous trips, entrance to the castle is free by special arrangement with English Heritage. We travel by bus: the X18 from Haymarket bus station, outside Marks and Spencers.
Schedule:
Meet at Haymarket bus station (usually Stand Q), ideally by *12.05*.
Catch 518 bus at 12.13.
Arrive Warkworth (via part of the scenic Northumbria coastal route) 13.40

Best to bring sandwiches to eat on the bus: refreshments including hot drinks are available at the Castle but there’s no cafe as such.

The bus drops us close to the castle; we’ll have ample time to explore it, and hopefully the hermitage (to which visitors are ferried by English Heritage rowing boat!) before heading downhill into the village for a refreshment stop in one the village’s excellent cafés/pubs (one of the latter serves particularly good scones!).

We will aim for the 16.37 bus back from Warkworth, getting back to Haymarket at 18.06. Buses leave at 37 minutes past each hour, though, so you can catch an earlier or later bus back if you like.

Cost: An Arriva all-day ticket (£7.80) is the cheapest option. Entrance to the castle is free; otherwise, just bring money for refreshments.

If you would like further details, email Dr. Phillippo at susanna.phillippo@newcastle.ac.uk.

PGF Lunchtime Seminar

The next lunchtime seminar is Wednesday 20th, at 1pm, in Armstrong 1.04.

John Bagnall (History) will be talking to us about :

The New Official History: Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands Crisis

‘Earlier this year, Charles Moore released the second of his three volume official biography of Margaret Thatcher. Moore was given unrivalled access to, not only Thatcher herself, but her wealth of private papers concerning her time as British Prime Minister. His first volume, published in 2013, ended with the Falklands Affair of 1982 and the second volume, picks up from this point and continues until the end of her time in office. The Falklands Affair was a dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. The dispute garnered international tension when a nine week conflict was fought between the two nations in 1982. Moore’s work uses Thatcher’s own papers and memory of the affair to give a new account of the conflict. As this work was undertaken before the source material was released for public research purposes, it is at the forefront of study of 1980s British Political history.

This paper aims to examine what Moore adds to the existing knowledge of the Falklands Affair in the context of Lawrence Freedman’s two volume Official History of the Falklands Campaign published in 2005. Freedman too was given access to source material from government departments before it was released to the public and produced, at the time, the most comprehensive study of the Falklands Campaign that had been done. This paper compares the work done by Moore to the work of Freedman to highlight what new insights Moore has offered on the Falklands Affair. This paper scrutinises the source material used by each author as well as their methodologies and conclusion to produce an analysis of how much has been added by Moore to our understanding of one of the most crucial aspects of Thatcher’s Britain, the Falklands Affair.’

Come along for discussion, tea, coffee and biscuits!

The Importance of being ‘Visible’

By Sam Petty (PhD History)

Tuesday 8th December, 6.30pm, Armstrong 3.38: “The Importance of being ‘Visible'” question and answer session.

Visible

I’m sure many of you would agree that academic life can be a fairly bewildering experience. Trying to get on with your research is a difficult enough enterprise in its own right. When you factor in applying for conferences and funding, planning research trips, and partaking in the oft-maligned practice of ‘networking’, it can all seem a bit too much.

The idea for this event came from several discussions about the value of the advice that our more experienced colleagues can give to us. My own experience of organising an academic conference for the first time was made much easier by being able to repeatedly saunter over to a colleague’s desk and ask her how she’d done things for her conference the year before (“never underestimate the frequency and cost of refreshments”). Equally, being able to pitch my conference paper to non-specialist colleagues was a great way to learn how to get my argument right for an audience that would only know the basics of my research.

I also wish that I knew things ‘then’ that I know now. I wish I could go back and tell undergraduate me what it would be like doing a Masters. I wish I could go back and tell the Masters me how the PhD funding and application process was structured. I wish I could go back and tell first-year PhD me not to spend six months on a mostly fruitless research thread that I still haven’t fully resolved.

The point is, is that although I have had to learn things through trial and error, it doesn’t mean we need to perpetuate this cycle of misery (there’s only so much ‘character building’ I can take). I’d like to give advice to other students who went through the same experiences as I did. I’d also like to talk to some of our academics so that I don’t make the same mistakes as they did when they were at the same point in their career.

Sometimes it seems, however, that there is rarely the right forum to receive (and give!) this sage knowledge – there are only so many times you can ambush someone in the corridor or the staff room before you feel like you’re unduly imposing on their time and freedom of movement!

With this in mind, the Postgraduate Forum have teamed up with several of the School’s academics to try and help you navigate the murky byways of academic life.

Our academic panel will consist of Dr. Chris Bannister, Dr. Robert Dale, Dr. Katie East, Dr. Philip Garrett, Dr. Patrick Gleeson, Dr. John Holton, and Dr. Lisa-Marie Shillito. We hope that this group represents the different disciplines in our School, so that there will be something relevant and representative for all of us who attend. Our panel will take questions from the crowd, and then when we’ve drained their knowledge (but hopefully not their patience), we can all just meld into informal groups to carry on the conversation.

Use the hashtag #AskThePGF to get your questions in before the event (although there will be time at the event to ask any you might have.

This is an event is for any students that are interested in attending, not just PhDs. This includes any Masters or MLitt students who are thinking about ‘the next step’, or any UGs who are contemplating postgrad study. We’re hoping for a useful, inclusive, and informal event that will hopefully set the ball rolling for more interaction in the future.

PGF Seminar – Wednesday 21st October 1pm

We are delighted to announce our first PGF seminar will be given by Xu Hong from UCD.

Wednesday 21^st October in room 2.50 (Armstrong Building, next to the reading room) at 1pm.

Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available as always – please come along and support our first postgraduate guest speaker.

Xu Hong – ‘Did Philip intend to invade Italy? A case study of the application of the Realist theories to the Hellenistic international relations’

The PGF seminar series is a fantastic opportunity for postgraduate students to deliver papers about their current research or research interests. This has been a great success in past years, so this year we will be developing this series in order to offer more flexibility. Therefore, we offer you the opportunity to present either a 20 minute paper or an extended paper of 30-50 minutes. This could be at lunchtime (usually between 1pm and 2pm on Wednesdays) or perhaps, in the evening (with the opportunity for taking questions in the pub!). If you would like to give a presentation, please do get in touch. If have any other ideas regarding the structure of a seminar or seminar sessions which you would like to do, if you know of postgraduate students from another university you would like to invite to give a paper, or if you have any questions or ideas then please do get in touch – we are open to new thoughts and aim to be as flexible as possible!

We look forward to hearing from you.

Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Research Student Symposium – confirmed speakers

We have now confirmed our list of speakers for the 2^nd NEBARSS conference, to be held here at Newcastle University in November in the historic Armstrong Building. The full list can be seen below, or can be downloaded in PDF form here.

Dr Chris Fowler will give a keynote lecture on Friday 20^th of November, his paper is titled:

‘The powers that be’? Powerful events in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Britain

This keynote will be followed by a wine reception, nibbles, and a lively discussion. Saturday 21^st is devoted to current research students, with postgraduate researchers from across Britain and Ireland presenting their work. There will also be a poster display highlighting new and exciting research projects.

Registration is now, and all those who wish to attend are required to register online here. http://webstore.ncl.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&catid=53&prodid=414

Registration is open to undergraduate and postgraduate students, postgraduate and early career researchers, lecturers and independent archaeologists, and members of the public who have an interest in prehistoric archaeology.

The registration fee includes the conference pack, tea/coffee throughout, lunch, the wine reception and associated nibbles! There is information on accommodation, travel, and things to do in Newcastle as well as instructions and how to find the Armstrong Building on our website here. (link) https://nebarss.wordpress.com/conference-archive/newcastle-2015/2015-conference-pack/ Please get in touch if you have any questions or queries.

We hope to see you in November for what promises to be an exciting and engaging symposium!

NEBARSS 2015 – Call for Papers!

2^nd Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Research Student Symposium

November 2015

We are holding a postgraduate research student conference here at Newcastle University focusing on the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age archaeology of Britain and Ireland. The conference will be preceded by a keynote speaker (tbc.) and a wine reception, which will provide delegates with a relaxed and friendly environment to discuss their research interests with other PG students and Newcastle staff members, as well as external archaeologists and interested parties.

The conference does not have a theme in order to allow researchers to present aspects of their research projects as they so wish. We are now accepting abstracts for both papers and posters from postgraduate researchers, early careers researchers or independent archaeologists. Click here to download our abstract submission form.

We would also encourage poster abstracts from Masters students who wish to present the results of their dissertations, or new PhD students wanting to present their key research interests and research questions.

If you are interested in attending but not giving a paper or creating a poster we will be opening registration in July , so keep an eye out for further information or email us to be put on our email list.

email: l.b.cummings@ncl.ac.uk or nebarss2015@gmail.com

View our Call for Papers poster for more information.

We hope to hear from you soon!