Dear blog,
It’s been really great to spend the evening reading over others’ blogs. I do hope that people continue to write these even after they’ve finished their reflective diaries. I think a blog could be really useful when you’re writing a PhD thesis. It might help organise your thoughts, help you decide what you think about a writer or an article or idea, and encourage networking and collaboration between peers working in similar areas. For the meantime it’s just really wonderful to read in such detail about the event last week, what people thought about sessions and tasks, and how it has made them reflect upon their own work.
It was a magical week; I keep telling people who ask me about it that this was probably the best class that I’ll ever get to teach, twenty PhD students from around the country, all bright and enthusiastic and willing to read and learn. I think I’ve been spoiled too! I really hope that the friendships that people made over the week continue and that together we form a new collaborative group, ready to discuss important developments in our field, solve knotty theoretical problems, and offer constructive suggestions and advice to each other. The photos are up on Flickr (I hope it’s ok that the photos you took have gone up Paul?), some of the slideshows are on slideshare, and the films will soon be edited by Cristina and uploaded onto our YouTube channel. We’ll let you know when this is done.
If you haven’t already done so, please send in evaluation forms to me (you can email if that’s easier), and please send reflective diaries (in whatever form) by Friday 15th Jan if possible. I’d also really like to know how you’d like to use the social space. Cristina and I have some ideas – pre- and post-event discussions, interviews with relevant critics, virtual conferences, online tasks – but I’d really like to hear about how you would like to use the space. Please let me know.
The Literature, Culture and Science research cluster at Salford is having a symposium on Friday (the programme is available at http://www.espach.salford.ac.uk/cms/news/article/?id=20). We have 17 confirmed participants now, which isn’t bad for what began as an internal event. I will be testing out some ideas for my session at the Royal College of Surgeons in March in my paper, but generally it will showcase the work being done in the litscimed area by University of Salford staff. I’m hoping that we may be able to capture some of it for the social space, particularly Scott Brewster’s session which was going to be similar to that we missed because of snow last week.
Finally, the programme is already online (http://www.litscimed.org.uk/page/event2_programme) for event 2 to be held at the Wellcome Library, King’s College, London, and the Royal College of Surgeons from 25-27 March. Applications are due in on Monday 8th February and we should let the successful applicants know by Monday 8th February.
More soon,
Sharon