The "Work In Progress" (WIP) seminar is a weekly space for Philosophy postgraduates to present in-progress work and receive feedback in a risk-free, supportive setting. It is informal, graduate-led, and reliably followed by a well-spirited trip to the pub. 🍻
All PGs are warmly invited to attend and/or present. This includes MAs, MPhils, PhDs, and visitors.
If you'd like to present or have any questions, email the organisers (see sidebar).
🕙 When/where is the WIP?
Every Thursday bar Reading Week (Week 6), in room S1.50.
Starts at 5pm, finishes no later than 6:15pm.
The room is S1.50.
📝 How does it work?
It's pretty straightforward: every week, a postgraduate presents in-progress work, with a Q&A after.
All are welcome to attend/present: whether MA, MPhil, faculty, or visitors.
Attendance optional but recommended.
📅 Format
Presentation: 30 minutes
Open Discussion / Q&A: 30 minutes
Material: Anything, really -- assessed essay (for MAs), a supervision essay (for MPhils), or a thesis section (for PhDs), ...
Style: Flexible -- slides, handouts, or simply talking.
Audience: No prior reading or background knowledge expected. Visiting PhDs
should
can present.
🤔 Should I present? ("I have nothing to present; I hate public speaking; etc.")
Are you a postgraduate? Then yes, you should present.
In other words, all graduates are encouraged to present at least once.
The WIP is a unique opportunity for graduates to develop their public speaking / writing skills, take risks, test out theses, and get constructive feedback from peers.*
Presentations need not (in fact, should not) be watertight or polished pieces at all. You are encouraged to present work at all stages of the writing process -- first drafts, substantial sets of notes, etc.
Simply signing up for a date is a great way to give yourself a deadline to work towards. (This is what most people do.)
Term 1
Wk 1 (09/10) | Tiago Rodrigues (MPhil)"Can you know the value of parenthood before having a child?"Wk 2 (16/10) | David Lopez Baeza (MPhil)"Internalism About Reasons and the Tutelage of Experience"Wk 3 (23/10) | Shaun Clamp (MPhil)"Testing the Limits of Feeling and Form: Reappraising Langer's Aesthetic Theory in Light of the Poetic Sublime"Wk 4 (30/10) | İsmail Deniz Demirkan (PhD)"Incompleteness of the Philosopher King: Gödel and the Concept of Truth in Politics"Wk 5 (06/11) | Alicia Klemm Silva (MPhil)"Frege on Sense and Reference"Wk 6 (13/11) | N/A
-- NO WIP DUE TO READING WEEK --
Wk 7 (20/11) | Ben Long (MPhil)"Knowledge Through Alchemy?"Wk 8 (27/11) | Dmitry Sereda (Visiting PhD)"No Surrender? Capital Flight, Tax Competition, and Egalitarian Taxation Reforms"Wk 9 (04/12) | José Xarez (Visiting PhD)"Free-Will Scepticism, Desert, and the Justification of Punishment"Wk 10 (11/12) | Emily Boocock (PhD)** CANCELLED **
Term 2
Wk 1 (15/01) | Juyong Kim (PhD)"Hegel's Intersubjective Logic: Hegel and the Possibility of a New Social Ontology?"Wk 2 (22/01) | Emma Clinton (MPhil)** TBC **Wk 3 (29/01) | Harland Cossons (UG)"The Ignorance of Crowds: Joint Extremist Action and the Problem of Common Knowledge"Wk 4 (05/02) | Emily Boocock (PhD)
"The Ignorance of Crowds: Joint Extremist Action and the Problem of Common Knowledge"
Wk 5 (12/02) | Leo Deng (MA)Althusser on Dialectical MaterialismWk 6 (19/02) | Evgenia Sonnabend (Visiting PhD)** TBC **Wk 7 (26/02) | Chris Hall (PhD)** TBC **Wk 8 (05/03) | Simon Courtenage (PhD)** TBC **Wk 9 (12/03) | Lumeng Liu (PhD)Philosophy of Mind & CommunicationWk 10 (19/03) | Tiago Rodrigues (MPhil)"Lib Epistemology: Can you make coherent sense of liberals?"
✍️ Guidance for Presenters
What can I present?
Any kind on in-progress work (within reason). E.g. Drafts of assessed essays, thesis sections, writing samples, conference papers, project outline, ...
Recommended Length
Aim for 3,000 to 4,000 words. Anything closer to the 5,000-word mark will be hard to fit in the 30-minute presentation time.
Presentation Structure
Presenters have complete liberty with regards to how to structure their presentation: handout, slideshow, etc.
Worth noting a common pitfall: spending too much time on background/exposition and not having enough time to present your main thesis and argument.
A good rule of thumb: aim for 10 minutes of exposition, and 20 minutes for whatever parts you actually want feedback on.
Submission Deadline
Presenters should email title and abstract to the organisers by the Sunday before their presentation. E.g. If presenting Thurs Week 5, email us by then end of Sunday Week 4.
