mortiz055

by Lizzie Swann Faculty of English University of Cambridge As a scholar of the former, with a growing interest in the latter, this is a question I’ve asked myself a few times over the past year or so. On the one hand, most of my days are spent reading, thinking, and writing about topics that are likely to seem highly esoteric to most people outside of my discipline, and probably to some within it, too.  In the past month, for example, I’ve been working on an essay about early scientific experiments into what were called ‘self-shining’ substances (such as phosphorus), and how these experiments informed metaphors of light in contemporary poetry. On the other hand, as part of the British Academy Early Career Network on Critical University Studies, under the dynamic, astute, and generous leadership of Alison Wood at the University of Cambridge, I have begun, slowly, to familiarize myself with the administrative and financial processes, and political policies and ideologies, which under...

By Elin Danielsen Huckerby   University of Cambridge In January of this year, a new UK based Researcher Network for Critical University Studies held its inaugural workshop at Cambridge's Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH). Convened by Dr Alison Wood , the network aims to develop researchers' capacity in the field of CUS, to work to better understand how universities can serve the public good, and how to enact changes that will enable that service.  The project arose from a recognition that expertise in this field is needed more than ever as universities, their environments, and their commitments become more complex – and as those complexities demand explicit pragmatic visions of what universities are and do. It also comes from a recognition of the fact that engaging in CUS, as a relatively new, cross-disciplinary and trans-sector field, poses challenges for early career scholars -- that getting funding, and building visibility and viabil...