| > Course details |
|---|
Red Roses for PRASH in Preston
It was enough to restart the wars of the roses. A very early train trip from York to the middle of darkest Lancashire on a cold winter's day, just to take part in some newfangled training event for postgraduates. In fact, with the excellent conference facilities offered by the Greenbank Building of the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, the whole occasion proved most rewarding.
Wednesday 18 January saw the successful launch of a new venture. PRASH - postgraduates in the arts, social sciences and humanities - had its inaugural training day. It was organised in a most professional way by UCLan, led by Prof Anne Wichmann of the CLASS Faculty, Dr Sarah Ashworth, who is the Project Officer for Postgraduate Talent NW, the North West Hub of the national UK GRAD Programme and Dr Richard Hinchcliffe, UCLan alumnus and now Director of Postgraduate Training at the University of Liverpool.
I was lucky enough to be one of the 40 or so post-graduates chosen, on the basis of their submitted abstracts, to give brief talks about their current research. As an extra incentive, all the talks were graded by those who came along to listen to them, and the top marks meant prizes of £50 worth of book tokens for four people, one from each of the groups to which we had been assigned. A similar scheme applied to the day's poster event, for which postgraduates submitted sheets explaining their research, many in strikingly professional glossy laminated formats. Though I did enjoy the one in felt-tipped pen on sugar paper!
Even without the incentive of the book tokens, it was a most worthwhile day. It gave all 90 of us the opportunity to meet fellow postgraduates from across the region, including some permitted cross-border interlopers from Durham and Newcastle. The key speakers for the day included Libby Raper from the North West Cultural Consortium. She and her fellow speakers gave us uplifting and useful messages about the thriving cultural, business and economic potential of the region and about the vital part we postgraduates were expected to play in its future.
A series of workshops offered us advice and training on a whole range of valuable topics. For instance, I am including interviews in my research into the Citizens' Theatre at the Theatre Royal in York. The down-to-earth hour's talk on oral histories, given by Steve Caunce from UCLan, was the most refreshingly informative, realistic and practical help I have received on the subject.
All in all, a great red rose day.
Clive Goodhead
Member of the International Federation for Theatre Research
Year 2 PhD student in Drama
The School of Arts Histories and Cultures
Member of the Cultural Theory Institute
The University of Manchester
Postgrad Talent NW is supported by the NW Regional Hub of the Research Councils’ UK GRAD Programme.
All material is copyright postgrad talent northwest 2004, use of this website is subject to our standard terms & conditions
