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Newsflash No. 72 - October 14, 2019

A collection of news, events, seminars, information, and other opportunities for master's students at the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Contents

Graduate School News

Theory and Method Courses Spring 2020 - Don't apply via antagning.se!
Student representative positions for the Development Studies and Global Studies students
Thesis information meeting for the first-year students
Soup Lunch: Dealing with Darkness
Interested in exchange studies?

Graduate School Events

Open Lecture with Robert Stewart - Migration Programming: Lessons from the Field

News and Events from the Faculty of Social Sciences

New Centre for Middle Eastern Studies Blog
Talk: Passion and Global Politics: A Conversation Series during the fall 2019
Seminar: Rethinking agriculture: From annual monocultures to perennial polycultures
Seminar: A Day in the Digital Lives of 0-3 year olds
Seminar: Personality cults in Modern Turkey: narratives, discourses and authoritarian politics
Sociological Movie Night: Circumstance
Thesis defence: Helena Lindberg
Seminar: Technological Control of Border - Three Arguments on the Legal Irresponsibility of the EU

Other News and Events

Internship: OpenDemocracy’s #rethinkingpopulism
Symposium: Critical Explorations of Crisis: Politics, Precariousness, and Potentialities
Seminar in Copenhagen: Influence and disputes in China-Southeast Asia relations


Graduate School News


Theory and Method Courses Spring 2020 - Don't apply via antagning.se!

We have come to hear that some students are applying to the second term courses on antagning.se / universityadmission.se. Please note that this is not necessary!

All Graduate School programme students will automatically be admitted to the second profile course of their respective programme (SIMP19, SIMP26, SIMP36, SIMP46) taking place in the first half of the spring term. In the second half of the spring term, Graduate School offers several elective courses, of which you will be able to select two. The application process for these elective courses is an internal one, that Graduate School manages. We will invite you to an information meeting in early February.

At this point, you don’t have to worry about applying to any courses. If you have already applied to any of our spring courses via antagning.se, please withdraw your application! (The application on antagning.se is meant for non-programme student and students from other universities. Your chances of getting into a course are not higher if you apply both via antagning.se and the internal application round happening next year. We still review every individual student, meaning that a double application creates more work for us.
 

Student representative positions for the Development Studies and Global Studies students

Samhällsvetarkåren, the Social Sciences Student Union, is still looking for a two student representatives from two Graduate School programmes: Development Studies and Global Studies. The objective of the student unions at Lund University is to protect the rights of the students and to assure the quality of education. 

Don't miss this opportunity to represent your cohort at the Union and to improve students' experience at the Faculty of Social Sciences! 

Vacancy announcement: https://www.samvetet.org/graduate-school19-20

Apply through this form: https://forms.gle/rDr8q769daW6npSHA
 

Thesis information meeting for the first-year students

All first-year Graduate School students are welcome to attend the thesis information meeting where the thesis course will be introduced. We will go over the course structure and answer the questions you might have about the thesis-writing process. 

Time: 28 October 2019 from 13:15 to 15:00 
Location: Lux Aula, lower


Soup Lunch: Dealing with Darkness

As autumn turns into winter and the days are getting darker, we invite all Graduate School students to join us for some delicious [free] vegan soup and bread while guests from the Student Health Centre and the Student Chaplaincy tell you more about their work and how they can support you while adapting to the Swedish winter.

Time: 6 November 2019 from 11:30 to 13:00 
Location: Student Lounge, Gamla Kirurgen
Registration: https://ui.uglnk.com/Surveys/dfa234a7-3573-4804-bcaa-dce00048acf3
 

Interested in Exchange Studies?

As a student at the Faculty of Social Sciences  you have great opportunities to study abroad as an exchange student. The Faculty of Social Sciences encourages students to take this opportunity to get a degree with an international profile. A list of Universities you can apply to is available when the application opens: https://www.sam.lu.se/sites/sam.lu.se/files/student_exchange_agreements_faculty_of_social_sciences.pdf

Who can apply?
You are eligible to apply for exchange studies via the Faculty of Social Sciences if you are registered and active as a full-time student at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Lund University  at the time of application and if you have achieved at least 30 higher education credits. You have to have studied two terms full-time studies at Lund University at the time of the mobility period. 

How do I apply?
You apply online and the application should include a Statement of Purpose, a CV and a study plan.

When do I apply?
The application for studies during Autumn 2020 or Spring 2021 is open 1-20 November.

Information meeting in English about Exchange studies and how to apply:

  • Date:  7 November, at 12.15 - 13.00
  • Venue: R 236, Gamla Kirurgen, Building R, Sandgatan 13A-B, Lund (map)

Questions? Please contact the International Office


Graduate School Events


Open Lecture with Robert Stewart - Migration Programming: Lessons from the Field

Robert Stewart is a professional evaluator, researcher and analyst with nearly 15 years of experience related to international humanitarian and development contexts. 

International organisations have detailed procedures and protocols for how to respond to migration and refugee crises, from undertaking contextual analysis to designing appropriate programming that takes into consideration extant needs, including those of the most vulnerable. But in implementing such programming, the organisations face a variety of significant challenges, particularly in complex and protracted emergencies.

In this lecture, Robert Stewart will draw upon his experience doing research for and evaluating the work of organisations undertaking migration and refugee-related programming as well as their funders to outline some of these challenges and detail how organisations have tried to respond to them. Specific topics to be considered include: gathering and effectively using timely information that is sensitive to contextual variation; ensuring protection concerns are sufficiently incorporated into programming; coordination between key actors; acceptable compromises; and, managing the humanitarian-development nexus.

RSVP: master [at] sam [dot] lu [dot] se (master[at]sam[dot]lu[dot]se)

Time: Thursday, 17 October 2019 13:00 to 15:00
Location: Room 236 in Gamla Kirurgen, Sandgatan 13A Lund
Contact: master [at] sam [dot] lu [dot] se (master[at]sam[dot]lu[dot]se)

 

News and events from the Faculty of Social Sciences
 

New Centre for Middle Eastern Studies Blog!

Check out our brand new CMES blog! This week has been dedicated to the events in Northern Syria, with contributions by Pinar Dinc and Orwa Ajjoub. The blog seeks to provide yet another channel for publicizing Middle East research at Lund (at CMES and beyond) in the form of op-eds, interviews, presentations of books, articles, events, projects in an accessible way. Find the blog here: https://cmes.blogg.lu.se/

 

Talk: Passion and Global Politics: A Conversation Series during the fall 2019

The series will focus on affective politics. Rather than taking macro-level politics and changes of the geo-political map as our point of departure, the conversations aim at exploring political processes, values and relations from the vantage point of passion

16 October 2019: Farha Ghannam 

Farha Ghannam is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and the author of Remaking the Modern: Space, Relocation, and the Politics of Identity in a Global Cairo.

How can we understand today’s global collective body of anxiety? The fear of the other? War and hostility? Such topics will be explored in five separate conversations with prominent and innovative scholars, formed as dialogues where the audience is invited to actively participate. The Center for Middle Eastern Studies is holding a conversation series on passion in relation to contemporary global politics, with a focus on the Middle East, North Africa and citizens in the Diaspora.

31 October 2019: Charles Hirshkind 

His research interests concern religious practice, media technologies, and emergent forms of political community in the Middle East, North America, and Europe. He gives particular attention to diverse configurations of the human sensorium, and the histories, ethics, and politics they make possible. Taking contemporary developments within the traditions of Islam as primary focus, he has explored how various religious practices and institutions have been revised and renewed both by modern norms of social and political life, and by the styles of consumption and culture linked to global mass media practices.

Time: 17:00 to 19:00
Place: Eden’s Auditorium, Lund
Contact: maria [dot] lofstedt [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se (maria[dot]lofstedt[at]cme[dot]lu[dot]se)
For more information: https://www.cmes.lu.se/events/fall-programme-2019/

 

Seminar: Rethinking agriculture: From annual monocultures to perennial polycultures

There is an urgent need for agriculture to drastically reduce its negative environmental impacts on land and oceans, while at the same time responding to increasing demand and adapting to a changing climate. For this to be possible, radical change in how we grow our major staple crops is essential. A shift from annual monocultures to perennial polycultures would dramatically change the most environmentally destructive activity humanity ever invented – agriculture. But is it possible?

After four decades of scientific interest and breeding, perennial grains have recently started to attract interest from farmers and industry, not least the newly domesticated crop Intermediate Wheatgrass (also known as “Kernza”) and perennial rice. While important steps forward have been taken in terms of plant breeding, many challenges and questions remain – scientific as well as economic, political, and social.

This event provides an opportunity to learn about and discuss the most radical rethinking of agriculture since the Neolithic Revolution. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines in the humanities, natural, social & economic sciences are welcome as well as stakeholders from agriculture and the food sector.

The seminar is open to everyone and will be held in English. It is part of the upcoming Future Week, which will be held 14-20 October 2019.

Time: 18 October 2019 12:30 to 14:00
Location: Eden Auditorium, Lund
Contact: lennart [dot] olsson [at] LUCSUS [dot] lu [dot] se (lennart[dot]olsson[at]LUCSUS[dot]lu[dot]se)
For more information: https://www.lu.se/event/rethinking-agriculture-from-annual-monocultures-to-perennial-polycultures

 

Seminar: A Day in the Digital Lives of 0-3 year olds

SamTech is a think tank on social science perspectives on digitalisation and new technology. Our workshops and seminars focus on social science questions relating to digitalisation, artificial intelligence, data mining and robotics.

Very young children gain access to and use digital technology, touchscreen tablets, apps, smartphones and the internet of things, in a pace and extension never witnessed before. In the tech-friendly country of Sweden, this transformation of childhood has hitherto been neglected in research, but calls for attention and needs to be critically analyzed. The aim of the project is to gain new insights into the ways in which digital technology inform and permeate the everyday lives of children, 0-3 yrs. old. The project will investigate their digital media appropriation, practices and agency as well as parental mediation strategies, to advance our understanding of their implications on childhood and family life. Furthermore, the project highlight the status of childrens’ early digital literacy skills, thereby also identifying implications for policy in relation to education, parenting, and the media industry. The project will make empirical and analytical contributions to two strands of research: the domestication of technology research, and theories on parental mediation. The project proposes a qualitative in-depth, and contextualized approach, focusing on 20 children and their families in a time-condensed ethnography, inspired by the well-researched ‘A Day in the life’ methodology, involving three visits in each family, and the construction of a thick set of data through interviews, survey, observations and video-recording the children in the domestic sphere.

This is an open seminar, all interested are welcome to attend!

Time: 18 October 2019 13:15 to 15:00
Location: Room P124, Department of Psychology, Allhelgona kyrkogata 16B, 223 50 Lund
Contact: Carola [dot] Aili [at] soc [dot] lu [dot] se (Carola[dot]Aili[at]soc[dot]lu[dot]se)

 

Seminar: Personality cults in Modern Turkey: narratives, discourses and authoritarian politics

Varuzhan Geghamyan, Yerevan State University.

Personality cults are a constituent part of Turkey’s political history. From Atatürk to Erdoğan most Turkish leaders attempted to construct their cults based on charismatic leadership. In this presentation we look at the history of personality cults from the perspective of the “communication of power” during the authoritarian modernization to understand the reasons of the emergence of this phenomenon and its place in Turkish political culture.

Time: 21 October 2019, 12:00 to 13:00
Location: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Finngatan 16, Lund
For more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/2106709542956615

 

Sociological Movie Night: Circumstance

Join us to watch a movie here at the Sociology Department! We will watch it together, have some snacks, and afterwards, have a short sociological discussion about some of the main themes of the movie.

A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's dangerous obsession.

Time: 22 October 2019 17:15
Location: Department of Sociology, room G119, Sandgatan 11, Lund
Contact: oriana [dot] quaglietta [at] soc [dot] lu [dot] se (oriana[dot]quaglietta[at]soc[dot]lu[dot]se)

 

Thesis defence: Helena Lindberg

Helena Lindberg will defend the dissertation ”The constitutive power of maps in the Arctic”.
Discussant is Professor Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv, University of Tromsø.

Time: 25 October 2019 10:15 to 12:00
Location: Edens hörsal, Allhelgona kyrkogata 14, Lund
Contact: helena_gonzales [dot] lindberg [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se (helena_gonzales[dot]lindberg[at]svet[dot]lu[dot]se)

 

Seminar: Technological Control of Border - Three Arguments on the Legal Irresponsibility of the EU

Amin Parsa is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Sociology of Law Department, Lund University.

Inter-operating biometric data and data mining technologies have been used by EU member States to generate patterns of movement which predict possible routes of future migration, forecast possible future flows of migrants and calculate their possible destinations. Use of such technologies, however, produce serious legal challenges in that they risk undermining the foundational principles of international refugee law as they pertain to the human rights of asylum seekers. One such principle is the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits states from returning asylum seekers to grave harm. Yet the current technological solutions allow European border security forces to act pre-emptively and before the state’s legal responsibility is triggered.

As a result, the growing use of such technologies can reshape international law and affect the human rights of the protection seekers negatively. What use for international law in the age of digital technologies? Can international law contain possible violence that the new technology can cause? And moreover, can new norms emerge from practices of the new technology? This project will answer such questions in the context of European border control operations and will offer a new understanding of the interaction between international law and technology.

Time: 30 October 2019 13:00 to 16:00
Location: Sociology of Law Department, Allhelgona Kyrkogata 18 C, House M, Room M331
Contact: martin [dot] joormann [at] soclaw [dot] lu [dot] se (martin[dot]joormann[at]soclaw[dot]lu[dot]se)
For more information: https://www.soclaw.lu.se/en/event/sociology-of-law-research-seminars-technological-control-of-border-three-arguments-on-the-legal-irresponsibility-of-the-eu 

 

Other News and Events

 

Internship: OpenDemocracy’s #rethinkingpopulism

The #rethinkingpopulism project, based at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies of Lund University, in cooperation with openDemocracy and partner Universities globally and coordinated by Spyros A. Sofos invites applications from students interested to work with us as interns for the 2019-20 academic year. #rethinkingpopulism is a multi-modal innovative discussion space on populism that will address theoretical as well ‘practical’ political issues related to the phenomenon.

We need non-paid interns to help us:

• Edit texts (short and long articles)
• Conduct basic research (simple literature reviews)
• Create and maintain databases of literature, contributors and other partners
• Help in communication with contributors to our openDemocracy page and our facebook page
• Assist in organizing events such as workshops, roundtables
• Assist in the production of print and web/multimedia content

Applicants will be expected to work on average three hours per week independently and as part of a team.

They need to have good communication, writing and IT skills. Good English proficiency is essential while knowledge of other languages is desirable. Interns will be a fully acknowledged part of our team and every effort will be made to integrate them in our activities and academic outputs.

Please apply with a brief CV, and a statement of intent that outlines why you are interested in and what you can bring to the project.

Deadline: Friday 18 October 2019 Please send your expression of interest to: spyros [dot] sofos [at] cme [dot] lu [dot] se

Please note that this internship is not connected to The Graduate School’s internship course. While successful applicants will gain valuable hands-on experience, they will not receive any academic credits for their work.
 

Symposium: Critical Explorations of Crisis: Politics, Precariousness, and Potentialities

Crisis seemingly weaves our world together with alarming reports on climate change, financial collapse, people’s movement and displacement, armed conflicts, and so on. The symposium opens up interdisciplinary and multifaceted dialogues in regard to the conceptualization of crisis in regards to politics, precariousness, and potentialities.

How, on what basis, by whom and in what context crisis is proclaimed?

What does crisis mean for social justices, security, and rights in particular contexts for various groups due to gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity, class, and body-ableness?

What extent does crisis language open up avenues for agency, counter-politics, and various moral/ ethical calls for change?

Time: October 21-22, 2019
Location: Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies, Biskopsgatan 3, Lund
Registration and more information: www.pi.lu.se/en/activities/theme-crisis
 

Seminar in Copenhagen: Influence and disputes in China-Southeast Asia relations

After a couple of relatively stable years in the South China Sea (SCS), tensions are flaring up again this year. We have witnessed the Vietnamese and Chinese deployments of oil rigs and ships, the sinking of a Philippine fishing boat reportedly by a Chinese vessel, and frequent and unprecedented operations conducted by the US and its allies. China has continued to build up military facilities on its artificial islands, and some domestic groups in Southeast Asian countries have protested against China’s influence. Meanwhile, China and ASEAN are negotiating a Code of Conduct in the SCS, a process they started in 2002 and aim to finish by 2022. Part of the obstacle of reaching an agreement is differences among ASEAN countries because of China’s significant influence over the less developed countries, thanks to the lure of economic benefits from China’s Belt and Road Initiative of infrastructure investment.

In the view of some observers, the SCS is a hot spot where a third world war could be ignited between China and the US. What are the chances of resolving the SCS dispute? To what extent do China have influence over Southeast Asian countries through economic means? This seminar gathers international and Danish experts on the SCS dispute and China-Southeast Asia relations to provide the most up-to-date and insightful analysis.

The seminar will be in English and live streamed on diis.dk. Participation is free of charge, but registration is required no later than Friday 18 October 2019 at 10.00. The link to the registration form and the programme can be found here: https://www.diis.dk/en/event/influence-and-disputes-in-china-southeast-asia-relations

Time: Monday 21 October 2019, 10:00 to 12:00
Location: DIIS Danish Institute for International Studies - Gl. Kalkbrænderi Vej 51A 2100 Copenhagen
For more information: https://www.diis.dk/en/node/15040