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Thinking Futures is a week long Festival to share and celebrate the research undertaken in the University of Bristol’s Faculty of Social Sciences and Law. The timetable comprises a wide variety of events for the general public, schools, policy-makers and third sector organisations, to be held in both Bristol and London. We are also pleased to welcome alumni to host events as part of this inaugural Festival.
All events taking place as part of Thinking Futures are free to attend but prior booking is required. To book a place, please follow the individual links to the event detail pages. A link to an Eventbrite page is provided for all events which require booking. There are a few events throughout the week which are targeted at specific audiences and are not open for booking.
From Monday 5th November to Friday 9th November, there will be a permanent display about Faculty research in the Social Sciences Complex, on Priory Road.
This poster presentation examines the use of Queen Elizabeth II’s dresses in British public diplomacy. We treat ‘dress’ as a social practice and performance that is central both to the constitution of different identities and to the production and dissemination of political meanings and relations, and thus political power.
Venue: Mezzanine in Wills Memorial Building
This session examines the broad trends in local democratic practice and considers the challenges and prospects for democratic renewal and enhanced public participation in local politics.
"We live in an era of Localism. Yet, many people do not engage with local politics. Why is that? Can we change the structures and practices of democracy in ways that enthuse people and encourage them to contribute actively to shaping the future of their area?" Professor Alex Marsh, School for Policy Studies
This event includes the opening launch reception for "Thinking Futures": The University of Bristol's Festival of Social Sciences and Law from 6pm - 6.45pm.
Venue: The Great Hall, Wills Memorial Building
This networking lunch will bring together a number of key stakeholders from around the city to speak with leading researchers to discuss current challenges and opportunities. The aim is to explore how University of Bristol research can work with partner organisations to address the challenges the city faces, and to make the most of opportunities.
"Our festival is focused on engaging with people to discuss collaboratively how we can use research to solve challenges and make the most of opportunities. As part of the festival programme, we are keen to have an event where the agenda is not set by us, to enable stakeholders to raise their most pressing issues and challenges." Dr Maggie Leggett, CPE
Venue: Drawing Room, Royal Fort House
This event will introduce young people to interdisciplinary research, combining fields of natural science with social scientific approaches to knowledge, attitudes and behaviours relevant to hearing health education. In addition to facilitating individual explorations, we will engage with our audience through various activities to let them have hands-on experience.
Venue: TBC
This event is about the lives of people with learning disabilities, who have been at the centre of our work at Norah Fry Research Centre for 25 years. It will offer the opportunity for audience members to look back over research findings, and also to have a say about what matters for people with learning disabilities in the UK today. We will aim to include all audience members, people with learning disabilities themselves, family members and practitioners, since they all have direct, lived experience of a learning disability. People with learning disabilities have helped to make sure our workshops are as easy to understand as possible, so that together we can make sure that research is valuable and has real impact where it matters.
Venue: The Vassall Centre
Bristol lecturers Dr Ryerson Christie and Dr Andrew Wyatt will present two short talks, followed by seminars, on Politics, Conflict and Development in South and Southeast Asia. Using multi-media the seminars and group discussions will provide students with an understanding of current debates surrounding British engagement in South and Southeast Asia.
Venue: Room 4.10, Graduate School of Education, 35 Berkeley Square
This event discusses the role of social media – such as Twitter, blogging, and Facebook - in debating policy issues, communicating with the public, and generating interest in public affairs. It focuses on the role that social media has played around the debates related to the election of the Mayor for Bristol.
Venue: Old Council Chamber, Wills Memorial Building
This Cabot annual lecture will lay out the case for concern and, perhaps more importantly, demonstrate how the early harnessing of human will and ingenuity may still offer opportunities to deliver relatively low-carbon and climate-resilient communities.
Venue: Explore, At-Bristol, Bristol Harbourside
Poverty and exclusion appears an intractable issue for many people in society. For many of those trapped, they will live shorter often unfulfilled lives, without work or suffering long periods of unemployment. Some will end up homeless, alienated from friends and family with no hope for the future. Worse still their children are far more likely to end up in a similar position. A number of different answers are presented in the evening and there will be the opportunity for an open discussion. Potentially the evening will lead to some new thinking about the issues as academics and practitioners meet together in an open forum.
"Key to tackling poverty and exclusion is to give people the support they need to deal with it themselves." Richard Pendlebury, MBE, Chief Executive of Emmaus Bristol
Venue: Black Development Agency
This roundtable event presents a critical discussion of the security choices we face as we enter the second decade of the 21st Century. The panel will explore the parameters of political choice in relation to a range of key security challenges, including intervention, terrorism, nuclear proliferation and environmental hazard.
Venue: Recital Room, Victoria Rooms
This lunch time event provides a lecture on the implementation of the new rules for defining Parliamentary constituencies in the UK, showing how this is going to change the nature of representation as numbers rather than places become the major criterion on which the cartography is based.
Venue: Peel Lecture Theatre, School of Geographical Sciences
This event brings together community groups, local policy-makers and academics to reflect on the participation and representation of diverse Muslim communities in local democratic governance, and to consider ways in which this can be made more effective.
Venue: Arts Complex, 3-5 Woodland Road
This event introduces different ways in which ‘visiting the GP' can be investigated through the lens of social science with the aim of improving patient care.
Venue: Rooms 2D2, 2E2 and 3F9, Social Science Complex, 8 Woodland Road
This event will introduce young people to interdisciplinary research, combining fields of natural science with social scientific approaches to knowledge, attitudes and behaviours relevant to hearing health education. In addition to facilitating individual explorations, we will engage with our audience through various activities to let them have hands-on experience.
Venue: TBC
This event will introduce the Understanding Society study, the largest household survey of its kind in the world and set out its potential to transform UK society. Three leading University of Bristol academics who are using data from Understanding Society will present some of their important new insights on contemporary social issues. There will also be time for a Q and A session at which the audience will be encouraged to discuss the findings.
Venue: Lecture Theatre 3, Arts Complex, 3-5 Woodland Road, BS8 1TB, Bristol
New theories in the social sciences and humanities regarding matter and human action are having a profound effect on how we need to re-think politics and human responsibility. Come by to explore how objects and processes like nano-particles, 3D printing, bio-art, craft objects, neurons, plastics, placental tissues, and more feature in exciting new research adventures at the forefront of social scientific thinking and practice.
Venue: Light Studio, Arnolfini, 16 Narrow Quay, Bristol, BS1 4QA
This event brings together a panel of experts on European affairs to discuss the events surrounding the Eurozone crisis. Taking the form of a Round Table, the speakers will try to shed light on the causes and effects of the crisis, and will answer questions on this complex subject.
"The European Union is an institution of some resilience; but it faces its biggest challenge to date in the eurozone crisis." Professor Michelle Cini, School of Socioloy, Politics and International Studies
Venue: Old Council Chamber, Wills Memorial Building
The event will bring together representatives of different minority and migrant groups in Bristol for a frank discussion about racism in local community relations. We will explore how these groups have been victims of racism, but also how they sometimes use racism against others.
Venue: TBC
We have entered a new geological age – the Anthropocene. For the first time, human activity is shaping biospheric change and global evolution. For good or ill, we have become the architects of our own planetary future. Professor Mark Duffield will explore the implications of these ideas with researchers from the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute.
Venue: British Academy, Carlton House, London
This poster presentation examines the use of Queen Elizabeth II’s dresses in British public diplomacy. We treat ‘dress’ as a social practice and performance that is central both to the constitution of different identities and to the production and dissemination of political meanings and relations, and thus political power.
Venue: Social Sciences Cafe, 8 Woodland Road
This event will introduce young people to interdisciplinary research, combining fields of natural science with social scientific approaches to knowledge, attitudes and behaviours relevant to hearing health education. In addition to facilitating individual explorations, we will engage with our audience through various activities to let them have hands-on experience.
Venue: TBC
This event will highlight new research on donor behaviour. Topics will include the effect of peer donations, gender differences in giving, behavioural “nudges” and payroll giving schemes. The aim is to provide practical insights for fundraisers – as well a wider perspective on how research might inform policy and practice.
Venue: Hamilton House, 80 Stokes Croft, Bristol
With the help of key ideas and research from social gerontology, a multi-generational audience are invited to re-think society’s approach to age.
Venue: Studio 2, The MShed, Princes Wharf, Wapping Road, Bristol
This event is a chance to engage actively in some of the work of an on-going research project, that has been tackling underachievement in primary mathematics through a focus on creativity. The project is a collaboration between the University of Bristol and the charity “5x5x5=creativity”.
Venue: Room 4.10, Graduate School of Education, 35 Berkeley Square
Focusing on timely debates about multiculturalism and ‘Britishness’, this event involves leading academics politicians and will be of interest to policy makers. Lord Professor Bhikhu Parekh will chair an evening seminar at the House of Lords where Tariq Modood and Varun Uberoi will present their most policy relevant findings.
Venue: Committee Room G, House of Lords, Westminster, London
Changes to our environment are needed to help individuals increase physical activity. This series of mini-lectures will outline Bristol research mapping how children move around their environment, how families can help increase physical activity and how research evidence can support neighbourhoods to shape their environment for improved health and well being.
Venue: Old Council Chamber, Wills Memorial Building
Making journalism commercially viable in the digital age is a challenge that continues to test publishers around the world. Major media brands have, after a sluggish start, embraced new platforms such as tablets with all the zeal of the convert. William Lewis argues that fresh methods of storytelling need to be found to reconnect with readers and audiences left uninspired by conventional journalism.
"We need to reinvent journalism to reconnect with readers and audiences." William Lewis, Newscorp
Venue: Auditorium, Victoria Rooms
This panel draws together scholar/activists critically engaged in Bristol’s radical movements to think critically about the intersections, implications and future possibilities of these diverse enactments of common life.
Venue: Mild West Room, Hamilton House, 80 Stokes Croft, Bristol
The Great Environment Debate 2012 at Bristol University will engage young people in one of the most important and pressing challenges of our time: climate change. Young people’s voices in the climate change debate are important, and young people should be actively encouraged to debate such issues in public life.
Venue: The Great Hall, Wills Memorial Building, Time: 10am-2.30pm
Education today is a state of turmoil, with numerous issues being widely debated, but none more so than the widening gap in access to, and outcomes from, education. At this exciting event, a panel of invited speakers with policy, practice and academic expertise will debate the state of education today and where it might lead in future, with a focus on inequality and social justice.
Venue: Recital Room, Victoria Rooms
The distance from the attacks of 11 September 2001 now gives us an opportunity to reflect on the significance of the events. Common sense asserts that our world changed forever because of the 9/11 attacks. But if true, shouldn't we have spent more time considering the ethical, political and philosophical stakes? While the attacks were abhorrent and criminal, our response represented a profound failure of the political imagination. This internationally acclaimed movie provides a critical evaluation of the past decade to ask how we may better respond to catastrophic events in the 21st Century.
Venue: Old Council Chamber, Wills Memorial Building
This panel discussion will provide an insight into the character of, and background to, the prohibition against torture etc in international human rights law as well as the moral complexity of what, at first, appear to be clear and categorical legal imperatives. Some of the world’s leading experts, including the Chair of the UN Sub Committee for the Prevention of Torture, will be platform speakers.
"It is one of the most fundamental axioms of international human rights law that the prohibition against torture, inhuman or degrading treatment is absolute and subject to no exceptions whatever. But recent developments have revealed that there are compelling human rights reasons for believing that this is not as self-evident or as clear-cut as has been assumed." Professor Steven Greer, Law School
Venue: The Great Hall, Wills Memorial Building
A 33-year-old British Pakistani who grew up in Essex, Maajid Nawaz was recruited into political Islam as a teenager. He joined Hizb al-Tahrir (the Liberation Party) where he played a central role in the shaping and dissemination of an aggressive anti-West narrative. Arriving in Egypt the day before 9/11 his views soon led to his arrest, imprisonment and mental torture, before being thrown into solitary confinement in a Cairo jail reserved for political prisoners. There, while mixing with everyone from the assassins of Egypt's president to Liberal reformists, he was adopted by Amnesty International as a Prisoner of Conscience, underwent an intellectual transformation and, on his release after four years, publically renounced the Islamist ideology that had defined his life, though he remains a Muslim. Maajid will be interviewed by writer and journalist Shiv Malik. They will discuss his journey and the work he now does to undermine the beliefs he had once been prepared to die for.
Venue: Watershed, Bristol
Venue: TBC
The purpose of the Next-Generation Global workshops is to enhance our understanding and knowledge of our private and public spheres by providing early career scholars with an opportunity to deliver presentations to an international audience, to exchange opinions with their peers from various parts of the world, and to learn how to participate and communicate in an international academic setting.
Venue: Inamori Memorial Hall, Kyoto University
Some 1400 years after the Prophet Muhammad first articulated God’s law – the shari’a – its earthly interpreters are still arguing over what it means. Hardliners reduce it to amputations, veiling, holy war and stonings. Others say that it is humanity’s only guarantee of a just society. In his new book Heaven on Earth, criminal barrister and prizewinning writer, Sadakat Kadri, sets out to see who is right. Travelling the Islamic world, he encounters a cacophony of legal claims. At the ancient Indian grave of his Sufi ancestor, unruly jinns are exorcised in the name of the shari’a. In Pakistan’s madrasas, stern scholars ridicule his talk of human rights and demand explanations for NATO drone attacks in Afghanistan. In Iran, he hears that God is forgiving enough to subsidise sex-change operations – but requires the execution of Muslims who change religion. All Muslims are guided by the shari’a – whatever their interpretation of it – and the stories of compulsion and violence are just part of a much bigger picture. Many of Islam’s first judges refused even to decide cases for fear that a mistake would damn them, and scholars from Delhi to Cairo maintain that governments have no business enforcing faith. Sadakat Kadri takes us on a journey through Islam’s past and present. The promise of a perfect social order can be compelling. But reality will always intrude. And when human beings attempt to apply divine justice, they risk creating not a heaven on earth – but something much closer to hell.
Venue: Watershed, Bristol
Tony Juniper (BSc 1983) the environmental campaigner, writer and sustainability adviser will give the London Branch of University of Bristol Alumni Annual Lecture for 2012.
Venue: Macmillan Room, Portcullis House, Houses of Parliament, London
Updated 26 October 2012 by Faculty of Social Sciences and Law
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