technē Conflux: Philosophy and Critical Methods Launch Event 

7th Feb 2019 1:00pm-3:00pm 

This workshop is offered as part of a TECHNE Conflux, an extended training, development, exhibition or performance programme which aims to enhance research or intellectual skills, or facilitate the sharing of expertise amongst doctoral students in the arts and humanities.

Critical research is defined as an approach skeptical of ‘problem-solving’ and the supposed social and political neutrality of knowledge construction and use of method. Alas, as the premise and thus research of critical approaches is intimately related to the question of method, the link to it is often hard to discern for PGR students.The matter is confounded by the current hegemony of ‘problem-solving’ and positivist discourse in UK Higher Education. The result is that students and academics alike have been unconsciously nudged into translating their work in terms inconsistent with their philosophical ethos and research method, and have likewise become ill-equipped to situate their work in relation to ‘problem-solving’; be that in the form of research proposals, funding bids, job applications, or a thesis/thesis outline. This is making critical research vulnerable to charges of intellectual and methodological inanity. Critical approaches, however, are underpinned by a rigorous tradition of thought, offering necessary social, political and economic critiques, and challenges to research necessary to the epistemic and democratic advancement of academia. The Conflux ‘Philosophy and Critical Methods’ aims to address this lacuna in knowledge and researcher training, bringing together TECHNE students from across the disciplines to learn, adapt and develop the purpose of critical research and the multiplicity of methods employed therein, with the assistance of experienced practitioners and theorists.

To be held at the University of Surrey. Lunch provided. For further details and/or to book, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/philosophy-and-critical-methods-conflux-launch-event-tickets-51647149013 or email christian.gilliam@surrey.ac.uk

ORGANISED BY: DR CHRISTIAN GILLIAM (SURREY), PROFESSOR BRAN NICOL (SURREY), PROFESSOR NATHAN WIDDER (RHUL), GARTH WENMAN-JAMES (SURREY), RUTH HANSFORD (SURREY)