Draft Minutes

2001 Group fourth Study Day (27 May 2003) report by VR

1. Advance organisation and outline of the day

The study day was organised by LD at the University of Southampton. The day reverted to the original format of a morning devoted to RS presentations and the afternoon to staff-led sessions, in contrast with the SD at Surrey in December ’02, which consisted of 4 staff-led sessions on different topics relating to PhD research. The day was very poorly attended. The afternoon session devoted to Film Studies was well received. The SD was held at Avenue Campus, with lunch in the cafeteria. Programmes and room directions were left at the reception for latecomers.


The Southampton study day again opened attendance to RSs outside the membership of the 2001 Group. Externals who attended the Surrey SD or the IHP workshop are now sent news of our SD activities as a matter of course. Unfortunately none of the 6 externals who had come to Surrey attended the Soton SD. All RS members were informed of the date and subject of the SD on 12 March. By 27 April VR had received full details of events for the day, and a programme/poster was sent out as an attachment to our members on 1 May. On 8 May a general invitation was posted on Francofil giving a link to the programme on the 2001 Group website, of which only 1 registration resulted. In the event, that person did not attend.

2. Attendance

OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY

No staff attended.

Joanna Shearer

QUEEN MARY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

Libby Saxton

No students attended

UNIVERSITY OF READING

Prof Naomi Segal

Guillaume Bergeron, Catherine Guy-Murrell, Diane Luscher-Morata, Victoria Reid

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

Dr Loraine Day; Dr Florence Miles

No students attended

UNIVERSITY OF SURREY

Jacqueline Page (also research student)

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

Dr Ingrid de Smet

No students attended

EXTERNAL RESEARCH STUDENTS

None

3. Aspects of the Study Day

a) Welcome and Coffee: this was informal and took place in the cafeteria. LD and FM met people arriving and directed them to the café. RS and staff were able to meet and chat informally prior to the first session. The surprisingly low attendance meant that coffee was prolonged in case more RSs might arrive.

b) Session 1 (Subject sessions, with facilitators from Reading, Soton, and Warwick): Due to the critically low numbers of RSs (6 RSs attended, in contrast to 15 [Dec 03]; 12 [June 03]; 14 [Jan 02]) the four proposed subject sessions of Linguistics, Film and Cultural studies Early Modern Literature and Modern Literature had to be merged. RSs gave short informal presentations of their work and were asked questions by other group members. It was interesting to hear of research work at different stages of completion.

c) Lunch: Lunch was in the cafeteria, a self-service refectory with a wide choice of food on offer. There was ample space and so participants were all able to be seated together in one area.

e) Session 2: Dr Mike Witt gave a short DVD screening of ‘De l’origine du 21è siècle’ (J-L Godard, 2000), followed by an illustrated paper entitled, ‘Histoire(s) du cinéma and the audio-visual history tradition’. The session was highly appreciated. As it lasted an hour there was limited time left to pursue the broader discussion of research methodologies in film studies. It was therefore proposed to have the workshop at the same time as the 2GC meeting, but in the end numbers were not strong enough to justify this.

g) Session 3: 2 GC meeting

All RSs attending were invited to attend the meeting. See minutes for full details of discussion.