Dr Stella Chatzitheochari will be chairing an event on Preventing and Tackling School Bullying, hosted by Inside Government. The event is aimed at School teachers and practitioners and will take place on Thursday 10th December 2015 in Central London. Further information about the event can be found on the Inside Government website http://www.insidegovernment.co.uk/event-details/school-bullying/547/#agenda.

The Festival of the Imagination will take place on campus on 16-17 October 2015 and will be the centrepiece of the University's 50^th anniversary celebrations, showcasing the work we do at Warwick through a diverse programme of events all focused around the central theme 'Imagining the Future'.

As part of this festival, there will be lots of talks and acitivities for staff and students to get involved in.

Highlighted below are some events which might be of particular interest to our Sociology community:

• ‘Is Diversity Academic in UK Universities?’ - Prof. Gurminder Bhambra is on the panel exploring this issue on Saturday 17 October at 2.15pm. This event free, but you should book tickets: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/about/warwick50/events/imagination/talks/diversity/
• ‘Solving Inequality’ - Inequality is one of our most urgent social problems. Poverty in Britain is at a post-war high and set to increase yet further. What prevents us from plugging the gap between rich and poor, and how can we redress the balance? This talk will take place on Saturday 17 October at 12pm. Students can attend for the discounted price of £5. More information and booking can be found at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/about/warwick50/events/imagination/talks/inequality/

We hope that you'll join us there!

Toxic Expertise: Environmental Justice and the Global Petrochemical Industry

ERC PROJECT LAUNCH, WITH WINE AND NIBBLES

4 November 2015, 5pm-7pm

Zeeman Building (Mathematics) Room MS.04

The ESRC has now opened its fifth annual call for applications for the Future Research Leaders Scheme with a deadline of 29^th September 2015. Full details of the FRL scheme, including eligibility requirements and other guidance, can be found here.

The Sociology Department is seeking to nominate a limited number of outstanding candidates. We will be running a preliminary internal competition as part of a wider University screening process in order to determine which candidates the Department will be supporting in the competition.

In the first stage of this process, applicants seeking a Sociology nomination for this scheme should send the following items to Professor Gurminder K Bhambra (g.k.bhambra@warwick.ac.uk) by 31 July 2015:

(1) A 2/3 page summary of their research proposal (to include sections on methodology, skill development and impact following ESRC guidance on these issues in their detailed guidance for applicants)

(2) A 2 page CV following the ESRC guidance

(3) A 1 page statement from the applicant's prospective mentor (who must be a permanent member of Sociology academic staff) in support of application, including its scientific quality and fit with Departmental research profile and expertise.

In the second stage of the process, nominated candidates (who will be nominated at the discretion of the Head of Department & Research Director), will receive feedback on their applications by 3 August and will be requested to submit their applications to the University selection process, with the support of the Department, by 6 August 2015.

June 23rd, University of Warwick, 10am – 4pm

R1.15, Ramphal Building

Social ontology is integral to the study of society. It is impossible to inquire into the social world without some understanding, at least tacitly, concerning the entities which make up that world and their properties and powers. However social ontology remains an often confused and contentious matter within the social sciences.

The conference is open to all PhD students and Early Career Researchers with an interest in social ontology.

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/centre-for-social-ontology-phdecr-conference-tickets-17016640229

The ten day festival starts tomorrow! View the complete programme here.

The festival will shine the light on social sciences by providing a variety of events for students, staff members and the wider public.

Here is a snapshot of just a few of the sessions which will take place:

• 12 May, 11.00-13.00: Dr Cath Lambert's 'Centre for Study of Women and Gender: Archive in the making' - R1.13, Ramphal
• 12, 13, 14 May, 19.15: Perfomance: 'Coney's Early Days (of a Better Nation) - Arts Centre. Booking required - book for this event here

So, join us and explore social matters throughout the years, whilst celebrating Warwick's 50th anniversary.

July 8th - The Shard, London​

This innovative conference brings together leading figures from a variety of fields which address issues of digital technology and digital data. We’ve invited speakers with a range of intellectual perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds who engage with questions relating to digital data and digital technology in their work. Our suggestion is that social ontology, however this might be construed, represents a potential common ground that could cut across this still rather siloed domain of inquiry into the social dimensions of digital technology.

The conference aims to explore this possibility by assembling a diverse range of perspectives and drawing them into a dialogue about a common question, without assuming a shared understanding of the topic at hand. Our aim is to extend this digitally via twitter, podcast and blog beyond the event itself, in order to facilitate an extended conversation that will draw more people into its remit as it circulates after the conference itself.

To this end, we invite each speaker to address this theme (the social ontology of digital data & digital technology) in whatever way they choose. Each speaker will have 30 mins to talk and 15 mins for questions. We’ll have an accomplished audio editor on hand to record each talk as a podcast. These will be released on www.socialontology.org and will be circulated on social media in order to try and stimulate a continuing debate around the issues raised at the conference. The hashtag for the day will be #socialontology.

This conference is aimed at people actively working in this field.

Confirmed Speakers:

• Chair: Celia Lury (Warwick)
• Noortje Marres (Goldsmiths) – Does Digital Sociology have a Problem?
• Jochen Runde (Cambridge) – Non-materiality and the Ontology of Digital Objects
• Alistair Mutch (NTU) – title TBC
• Susan Halford (Southampton) – title TBC
• Nick Couldry (LSE) – title TBC
• Emma Uprichard (Warwick) – Big Data, Complexity and Time.

Professor Simon Williams appeared on Radio 4's 'Bringing Up Britain' on the politics of children's bedrooms. To listen to the full episode click on link below:

BBC 4 Radio - Bringing Up Britain

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ckgfv#synopsis

'Following the introduction of civil partnerships and statistics which indiacte half of all children in the UK are being born outside marriage, it appears that attitudes towards sexuality have greatly relaxed. However, there is one demographic who feel increasingly marginalised in our more openly sexual society; it is estimated that one per cent of people in this country describe themselves as asexual'.

Woman's Hour Wednesday 29th February 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/26/among-the-asexuals

Among the asexuals

'In a society obsessed with sex. It's hard if you have no sexual desire at all. Some are searching for a new form of intimacy'.

The Observer Sunday 26th February 2012