HARC - Humanities and Arts Research Centre | Royal Holloway, University of London

The Humanities and Arts Research Centre at Royal Holloway was established to foster a “community of enquiry”. It promotes innovative thought, interdisciplinary initiatives and collaborative research.

2012-2013: Crisis and Transition

The HARC Annual Theme for 2012-2013 is designed to complement and enhance new developments at RHUL. See our Events Calendar for forthcoming speakers, seminars, discussion groups, and conferences pertaining to philosophical enquiry. Further details will be posted on our home page over the course of the year.

In addition to our main theme, HARC will also be hosting various other ad hoc events, as part of larger activity strands, and on occasion as individual events.

HARC events are also recorded and webcast and may be accessed online in real time, or as streaming files through the Backdoor Broadcasting Company|.

Congratulations to our new fellows for the academic year 2012-2013!

Our HARC Fellows 2012-2013 have been awarded to Dr James Sloam (PIR) and Dr Stephen Rose (Music). Their fellowships will serve as a platform for discussion on the broad HARC Annual Theme of "Crisis and Transition".

Fellowship Strands:

1. Dr James Sloam (Politics and International Relations)

Short outline of the fellowship project

Crisis and Transition

James Sloam is Senior Lecturer in Politics and co-director of the Centre for European Politics. His work as a HARC Fellow in 2012-2013 will focus on the civic and political engagement of young people in British democracy (from a multidisciplinary perspective). James has published widely on this subject and recently co-edited a special issue of the journal Parliamentary Affairs on youth, citizenship and politics in the UK. The Fellowship will bring together academics and policy-makers to address three main questions:

1. How and why do young people participate (or not participate) in British ‘democracy’ (in its broadest sense)?

2. To what extent is there a growing participatory gap between rich and well-educated and poor and less well-educated young people?

3. How might youth participation in democracy be strengthened (in an adverse economic climate)?

These three questions have great relevance in the context of low youth turnout in recent parliamentary elections, high youth unemployment, the 2011 riots in England, and government attempts to promote civic engagement at the local level.

2. Dr Stephen Rose (Music)

Short outline of the fellowship project

Crisis, creativity and the self, 1550–1700

My fellowship addresses the theme ‘crisis and transition’ by examining the period 1550–1700, an era when notions of creativity and the self were radically reordered. The long seventeenth century has often been regarded as a crisis by historians on account of its wars, political revolutions, economic turbulence and intellectual ferment. Yet the period also saw the development of attitudes associated with modernity: innovative scientific methodologies, an openness to external reality, a rejection of past authorities, and a new awareness of individual subjectivity. Concepts of creativity changed accordingly, such that the emulation of established models was no longer valued, and instead emphasis was put on individual imagination and constant novelty. As the musician Heinrich Schütz noted in 1650: ‘An old tailor and an aged musician are of no use to anyone, because this young world soon becomes weary of the old costumes and fashions.’

I plan to explore these themes via the following activities:

Guest lecture on changing expressions of selfhood in creativity and material culture, 1550–1700

‘Formula or fantasy?’ - a workshop on historical techniques of improvisation, January 2013

‘Crisis, creativity and the self, 1550–1700’ - a postgraduate study-day in May 2013

Please contact me (stephen.roserhul.ac.uk|) if you would like to contribute to any of these activities.

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Audio-Recordings

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Our video and audio archives of HARC events and conferences over the past two years are available both on the Royal Holloway Media website| and the Backdoor Broadcasting Company website|