Postgraduate Perspective Newsletter: February 2013
The February 2013 issue of the Postgraduate Perspective newsletter is now available. Featuring the theme of ‘sustainability’, articles include:
- The virtue of Sustinere is its sustainability
- Helsinki prize winner Aylwyn Walsh
- Social network phenomena
- Multiculturalism and sustainability
- The Research Support Hub
- Sustainable educational development
- The student experience
- Student finance and sustainability
- Book review corner
- New students and completions
- Postgraduate Annual Conference
- Graduate School training programmes
Caveat lector: a lament for Google Reader
Perhaps we were asking for trouble posting about the demise of Connotea and Posterous, because now look what’s happened: Google Reader has caught the fever and will be disappearing on July 1.
Research seminar in the School of Science and Technology
Submitted by Professor Jeff Ollerton
The following double-header research seminar is taking place on Wednesday 8th May 1200 to 1300 in NW205. All welcome.
Professor Kate Rowntree (Department of Geography, Rhodes University, South Africa):
“Integrating geomorphology into the classification of ecological condition: GAI and the Ecostatus model for South African rivers”
Professor Roddy Fox (Department of Geography, Rhodes University, South Africa):
“A comparison of modelled and recorded rainfall for the extreme weather event of February 2011, Ganora, Sneeuberg Mountains, South Africa”
Kate and Roddy will each speak for about 30 minutes. Further details are available from Ian Foster.
Image credit: delayedgratification on Flickr 
Saturday School on April 13th
The Graduate School will be running a Saturday school for UN PGR students on April 13th 10-5pm in the T-Pod, Rockingham Library, Park Campus.
We will be covering “Preparing for Transfer” in the morning, followed by brand new workshops on “Interviewing for Researchers”, and “Negotiation skills”. The afternoon workshop on Negotiation Skills will be run by external trainer Karin Blak and you will learn a range of skills vital for managing situations in collaborative relationships, such as with your supervisor or other work and study colleagues. For more information see the outline Eventbrite page.
Book now to secure your place.
CoHaB summer school open lectures on diaspora studies
Submitted by Dr. Larissa Allwork.
The University of Northampton is one of six members of the Marie Curie Initial Training Network called Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging (CoHaB). Other partners are the Universities of Munster, Mumbai, Oxford, SOAS and Stockholm.
This March the 12 international postgraduate students affiliated to CoHaB will be coming to The University of Northampton School of the Arts to engage in CoHaB’s core module on Diaspora Studies. There will also be two postdoctoral students from COMPAS and the English Faculty at Oxford University, who have arranged the programme and will oversee the teaching of the core module of the Summer School on Diaspora studies.
University represented at Holocaust Memory Re-visited conference
Submitted by Dr. Larissa Allwork.
School of the Arts researcher Dr Larissa Allwork will be representing the University of Northampton at the internationally prestigious ‘Holocaust Memory Re-visited’ conference at Uppsala University in Sweden (21-23 March 2013). Dr Allwork will be contributing her research on British/Lithuanian Holocaust memorialisation efforts to the Uppsala conference which addresses recent cultural endeavors to depict and commemorate the Holocaust and Nazi era crimes. Dr Allwork is currently working with Professor Janet Wilson on the EU-Marie Curie funded Centre of Home and Belonging project and Dr Sonya Andermahr’s Working Group for Interdisciplinary Research in Trauma, Narrative and Performance.
Don’t Track Me, Google: a plugin to reclaim your search URLs
I had a problem this afternoon: searching for details on a conference from the distant past, I hit Google and found a link to a Word document with the conference programme. I wanted to email this link to someone, and that’s when the problem appeared: I couldn’t. Here’s what I discovered, and what I discovered I could do about it.
Posthumous Posterous: the importance of the exit strategy
I this post I discuss the imminent closure of the Posterous blogging service, and the wider topic of what happens to your data when a tool you rely on is killed off (or, perhaps, you grow out of it and want to move elsewhere). I’ll take a look at the export options for various major online tools that researchers may be likely to use, and suggest a few things to check for when you’re starting out (or if you’re already knee-deep in published content).
If postdoctoral life is about playing by the rules, what are the rules?
This article about postdoc careers might be of interest:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2013/feb/25/post-phd-rules-academic-mentors
UON Graduate School Blog 