CALL for UCL UG Students: Diversity Dialogues Interdisciplinary Summer School - DEADLINE EXTENSION

Participation in the summer school will be open to any interested UCL UG student who identifies as one of the target groups of the Student Success programme and who is registered for a degree in Arts, Humanities or Social Sciences. Priority will be given to current second years, because conceptual work is usually a significant element in final-year project work (dissertations or portfolios) in AHSS degrees, but students in their first year would also be eligible to apply, or finalists if they have secured a place on an MA or MRes for the subsequent year.

The summer school will take the form of a one-day workshop and will give the UG students the opportunity to engage in intensive critical discussion of two selected concepts (e.g. Racialisation or Capitalism) that feature in academic work on difference and inequalities to demystify the process of conceptual thinking in order to help students become more intellectually confident and able to engage in the risk-taking that is required for rigour and innovation.

The event will be led by three PhD student (PGR) Co-ordinators who are researching in the field, supported by two senior IAS staff.  The PGR Co-ordinators will be from different disciplines, so that they are equipped to help the UG students to explore how differently three AHSS disciplines think with concepts such as decolonisation, gender, race or class. Any such concept will be embedded in specific and often fast-moving disciplinary debates, which will mean that its connotations can be very different, even contradictory, in different disciplines. Meanings are likely to vary in different social and cultural contexts, especially when a concept originating in the hegemonic English language is translated. By bringing out all these varying perspectives, while still focusing on the importance of precision in any specific use of a term, students will be encouraged to think of concepts as creative tools rather than as fixed, unfathomable entities. Part of the day’s work will involve the use of creative methods to design a product that captures the discussions had, in, say, an artwork, soundwork, comedy sketch, dramatic performance or similar. A project website, created and maintained by the IAS will display the designs, and invite other contributions.

Indicative Workshop Programme

10.00-10.30: Welcome and Introductions
10.30-12.30: Concept 1, e.g. Racialisation, interdisciplinary presentations and discussion
12.30-13.00: Lunch
13.00-15.00: Concept 2, e.g. Capitalism, interdisciplinary presentations and discussion
15.00-15.15: Tea break
15.15-16.30: Work on outputs (in two groups of five, one for each concept)
16.30-17.00: Report back and concluding discussion

Anticipated benefits to UG participants:

1. Greater confidence about conceptual thinking
2. A new network of contacts interested in developing those skills
3. Experience of interdisciplinary research methods, culture and practice

How to apply:

Please send the following information to Catherine Stokes (c.stokes@ucl.ac.uk) by midnight on Sunday 4 April 2025:

• Name
• Undergraduate degree course
• Department
• Year of study
• Student Success programme target group

Places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.