Past events
Open Forum (31 January)
The first meeting was an open forum to talk about inclusion and diversity at the School and consisted of a short introduction by the co-convenors of the seminar, followed by an invitation to join breakout room discussions. Breakout groups included discussions on race and racism, gender, LGBTQI+ identities, age, disability and precarity. In order to facilitate discussions, the convenors used a framework called ‘Where do you know from?’ You can find out more information about this at the following link: https://maifeminism.com/where-do-you-know-from-an-exercise-in-placing-ourselves-together-in-the-classroom/.
Social justice and Senate House Library (25 February)
The second session focused on social justice and Senate House Library. One aspect of this work is the generation of ‘case studies’, suggested and undertaken by library staff. In this session, we heard from four members of Senate House Library staff:
• Richard Espley: The creation of a scholarly edition of poetic drafts by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), heavily revised by Thomas Sturge Moore (1870-1944), as a potential demonstration of colonial power dynamics
• Argula Rublack: Enslavement in the archives at Senate House Library
• Leila Kassir: Exploring Senate House Library's Anglophone Caribbean Literature Collection
• Fran Frenzel discussed the challenging programme to address outdated, inappropriate and occasionally offensive terminology in the library’s own description and classification of its holdings.
Or explore the slides in your own time: Doing the Work SHL slides
Precarity, casualisation and its intersections with inclusivity and diversity (18 March)
The third session focused on the question of precarity and its intersections with inclusivity and diversity at the School of Advanced Study and beyond. Invited speakers included:
- Eleanor Beal (Manchester Metropolitan University Anti-Casualisation Network)
- Rhian Elinor Keyse (Birkbeck/co-chair of the UCU Anti-Casualisation Committee)
- Sanaz Raji (Northumbria/founder of Unis Resist Border Controls)
Diversion and Inconclusivity: The Difficulties of Doing the Work (8th April)
The fourth session focused on how institutional histories and memories can inform contemporary EDI work and how the School of Advanced Study and others might rethink and retool their existing approaches in light of these histories. The speaker was Sarah Pyke (Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies, and co-convenor of ‘Doing the Work?’).
Student session of Doing the Work? (29 April)
The fifth session was co-convened by students in the School of Advanced Study, Natalia Fantetti, Christopher Lu and Conny Kaufmann. The session was open to students only, but recommendations were shared from this session in the final session on 6 May.
Questions and Conversations about Inclusion and Diversity at the School of Advanced Study (6 May)
The final meeting was an open forum to discuss the recommendations the organisers should put forward at the conclusion of this seminar series, and consisted of a short overview of the series by the co-convenors of the seminar, followed by an invitation to join breakout room discussions. Breakout groups included discussions on staff networks, EDI staffing across the School and UoL, partnerships and outreach, decision-making and creating cultures for sustainable EDI work.