Other News
New book published by Dr Madeleine Fagan
Ethics and Politics after Poststructuralism: Levinas, Derrida, Nancy (Edinburgh University Press, 2013)
What would political thought look like without the foundation of ethics?
This groundbreaking book offers a fresh and innovative perspective on ethics and politics after poststructuralism. Madeleine Fagan argues that the ‘ethical’ should not be understood as a label; it does not mean ‘good’ or ‘right’, and is not an evaluation or guide. Rather, both the ethical and the political are descriptions of the context in which we find ourselves. Fagan offers an account of the inseparability of ethics and politics that challenges existing accounts of poststructuralist ethics and shows the need for a practice-based rethinking of the ethico-political. Drawing on the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy, Ethics and Politics after Poststructuralism puts forward a radical and far-reaching critique of both foundational and non-foundational ethical theory.
To read more about the book, or order your own copy, click here.
PAIS success in Q-Step programme competition and new BA in Quantitative Methods
Warwick is part of a new £19.5 million Nuffield-ESRC-HEFCE Quantitative Methods programme to transform social science teaching in the UK. The University is one of 15 institutions (selected from a total of 48 who applied across the UK) to be awarded more than £1 million to overhaul its social science teaching, and the only Q-Step Centre in the West Midlands. The ‘Q-Step’ programme is an ambitious intervention to address the critical shortage of social scientists with the quantitative skills needed to evaluate evidence and analyse data.
The 15 universities will form a network of ‘Q-Step Centres’, delivering new undergraduate programmes in quantitative social science. These will include the development of new courses, production of new content for existing courses, experimenting with new ways of teaching, as well as work placements and pathways to postgraduate study.
This funding success has also resulted in the launch of a new BA Politics, International Studies and Quantitative Methods, which is now open for 2014 applications. This will run alongside our existing programmes but also be integrated through attempts to embed quantitative methods in existing modules.
Stagecoach Unibus named after founding PAIS Prof Wilfrid Harrison
Prof Wyn Grant recently attended an event to celebrate the naming of several Stagecoach Unibuses after the founding professors of the University of Warwick on 22 September with Professor J R Sargent and the families of the late Professors Donald Charlton, Malcolm Clark, John Hale, Wilfrid Harrison and Arthur Shercliff.
Prof Grant wrote about his experience at the event below:
The University of Warwick will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2015. One of the founding professors was Wilfrid Harrison of the Department of Politics. Indeed, he was the university's first (and at the time only) pro vice-chancellor. He actually arrived in 1964 and worked out of a house in Gibbett Hill Road to plan the department and help with the planning of the university. His contribution and that of other founding professors was recognised at a recent bus naming ceremony at the University. This was a very pleasant occasion as people were able to share their memories of the pioneering years of the University. Each bus has within it a plaque given a short biography of the founding professor. Wilfrid Harrison was one of the founders of the discipline of politics in Britain and the first editor of Political Studies, the journal of the Political Studies Association.
BasicNeeds forms new collaboration with the University of Warwick
Nathan Harris, a PAIS MA student, has been offered a PhD at the University of Warwick, which will involve close collaboration with BasicNeeds. The studentship is fully funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Nathan has previously volunteered with the BasicNeeds Animation Programme and recently submitted his academic dissertation titled Participatory Action and Animation: Promoting Capacity-building amongst Mental Health Service Users in the Developing World which was part of the first-ever PAIS Warwick MA studentship programme with BasicNeeds.
For his PhD, the focus will be on critically evaluating the BasicNeeds Model for Mental Health and Development and the contribution the Model makes to participatory approaches to mental health and development. This PhD will be an interesting bridge between the real world of community oriented mental health practice and the academic world.