A word from our keynotes
by Mark Almond
We have just received the titles and abstracts from our keynote speakers, Prof. Tim Champion and Prof. Matthew Johnson. It promises to be an exciting journey through the changing postgraduate communities at Southampton and around the world. Here they are:
The invention of the postgraduate community
Prof. Tim Champion
Looking back over recent decades, it is striking how much the Department of Archaeology has changed, not only in size, but in its composition. Postgraduate research students have always been with us, but their numbers were very small and little provision was made for them, except one small office; there was no sense in which a ‘community’ or a ‘culture’ existed. Changes from the 1980s onwards were to a large extent the result of external influences: the idea of a taught MA/MSc as essential research training for a PhD, and the insidious growth of funding-related research assessment, when size mattered more and more. PGR numbers continued to grow, but more dramatic still was the rapid expansion of MA/MSc students and the appearance of an entirely new species, the post-doctoral research fellow. With the increase in size, their came the elements of a ‘research culture’ (specialist centres, offices, seminars, annual conferences) and with it a feeling of a ‘community’.
what is a postgraduate ‘community’?
Prof. Matthew Johnson
In this informal talk, I will follow on from Prof Champion’s historical reflection on the changing Southampton postgraduate community. I will think about what is or should be an ideal ‘postgraduate community’ by reflecting on my experiences of such communities at different places around the world. I will draw some contrasts and tensions, for example between the need for a supportive environment and one in which students learn to survive and prosper, and between a collective identity and diversity between different theoretical ‘schools’.
Categories: PGRAS 2011.