British Postgraduate Philosophy Association

The British Postgraduate Philosophy Association (BPPA) invites submissions to an online podcast symposium to be hosted on the BPPA website in Spring 2012. Each week a paper will be podcasted on the BPPA website (http://www.bppa-online.org/), a written response will be posted by a respondent in reply, and the thread will be opened for general questions and responses.

Submissions, which must be no longer than 4000 words and preferably shorter, should be sent to BPPA2012@googlemail.com by February 13th 2012 with the subject line: Podcast submission. Submissions should be prepared for blind review with a cover sheet specifying the author’s email address and institution.

Podcasts and papers will be posted weekly on the BPPA website from 26th March 2012. Participants are expected to record an mp3 file of themselves presenting the paper (a program such as audacity can be used for this purpose.) They are then expected to provide the BPPA with an mp3 of their presentation, a pdf of the paper, and an abstract of around 150 words by March 26th. The presentations should be at most 30 minutes long, extremely clear, and presentable to a general philosophical audience.

The aim of the podcast symposium is to provide an additional forum for postgraduate philosophers to discuss their research with one another at zero cost.

The British Postgraduate Philosophy Association puts on Masterclasses each year and are looking for postgraduate students to organise this year’s. Past Masterclasses have involved 10-12 postgraduate philosophers working and presenting in small groups on a particular subject area under the direction of one or two highly regarded philosophers in that area. In previous years Masterclasses have take place on The Emotions, Early Analytic Philosophy, Wittgenstein’s Methods, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Religion, Naturalism and Epistemology, and Normative Ethics. The BPPA is open to proposals along similar lines.

This year’s first Masterclass is due to take place in April at the Institute of Philosophy in London. Masterclass organisers will choose a topic for the Masterclass, gain the support and agreement of a suitable academic philosopher or philosophers to convene the Masterclass, secure funding and budget for the Masterclass, as well as assess the applications of potential attendee’s, and attend to the logistics of the Masterclass.

The successful committee will get the advice and support of the BPPA committee, the resources at the BPPAs disposal, the advantage of the reputation of the BPPA, and the resources that are passed on from the experience of previous organisation teams.

This opportunity is not only a way of gaining valuable CV boosting experience at the same time as providing an invaluable resource for the fellow postgradute students who attend the event, but it is also a brilliant way of meeting lots of like minded postgraduates and can be a lot of fun.

If you would like to form an organisation committee to put together this year’s Masterclass please email joanne.lovesey@heythropcollege.ac.uk as soon as possible with the names and affiliations of your proposed team, and any questions you might have. We will then ask for a brief proposal.

Jussi Suikkanen, lecturer at the University of Birmingham, has kindly provided the BPPA with a short guide to publishing as a philosophy postgrad:

Debbie Roberts, who recently got the 'holy grail' of a permanent job in philosophy at York after completing her PhD at Reading, has kindly agreed to provide some advice for philosophy job hunters...

A page of interesting links can be found at http://healthcareethicscanada.blogspot.com/2008/12/philosophy-degrees-an...

Hi folks, this website is once again open to registration from postgrad students and professionals worldwide in philosophy and related disciplines. Perhaps the main reason to register is to get access to the group blogging functionality. Following registration, you'll be able to run your own blog in this website, with your posts advertised along with everyone else's on the front page. So feel free to write in which philosophical thoughts, requests for people to read your latest paper, philosophy announcements, and maybe even some fun to provide an antidote to any overly stressful brow-furrowing.

Three things to note when you register: (1) to prevent spammers, your registration will be checked by a human being. So please be a little patient :-) (2) It helps if you register using your institutional email address, so that we can verify who you are. And (3) please register using your real name or something similar, cos it helps to make our website look friendly. Spaces and hyphens are allowed, so when Barack Obama registers (any day now), he'll be able to choose "Barack Obama" as his username.

If you attended the recent BPPA Careers Day or Annual Conference, we'd really appreciate it if you could spare two minutes to give us your feedback. You can find the very short (honestly!) survey at http://www.bppa-online.org/survey. Thanks for your time!

If you have any photos from the recent BPPA conference that you'd like to share, please send them to geoffrey dot ferrari at me dot com . We'd love to include them on our website, and maybe even put them on the slideshow thingy at the top of the page :-)

We are delighted to announce the results of the 2011-12 Executive Committee elections:

President

Vice-President

Treasurer

Secretary

Events Coordinator

Fundraising Coordinator

IT Coordinator

Our sincere thanks to the retiring members of the committee for their endeavours in the good cause of postgrad philosophy:

Selina Sadat (Edinburgh)
Jonathan Beale (Reading)
Alex Carruth (Durham)
Arlette Frederik (Durham)
Ian J Kidd (Durham)
Charles Haynes (The University of Life)

The British Postgraduate Philosophy Association warmly invites postgraduate students and other eligible parties to stand for election to its Executive Committee for the academic year 2011-12.

We warmly encourage all philosophers at postgraduate level to consider standing for election. No experience is necessary, and membership of the committee provides valuable experience of the wider philosophical community. Membership of the committee is a position of responsibility, but we always aim to keep the workload on the easy side of manageable. Furthermore, this year's BPPA elections are particularly poignant, because, after many years of surviving from year to year on a wing and a prayer, we have recently adopted a new constitution (our first ever!), thus officially constituting ourselves for the first time as an Association of Postgraduate Philosophers. We hope that our new constitution will bring more power to the people, as well as streamline the activities of our committee, making life easier for everyone!

The election will take place on Sunday 25th September at the University of Reading, during the final day of our Annual Conference. The following committee posts are subject to election: President, Vice-President,Treasurer, Secretary, Events Coordinator, Fundraising Coordinator and IT Coordinator. Anyone eligible for membership of the Association is eligible to stand for election, although membership of the Association is a condition of taking up office. It's also possible to stand for election in more than one post (thus maximizing your chances of getting elected :-) . Please note that attendance in person is not necessary to stand for election. Further details on how to apply are given below the fold.

If you would like to know more, whether just out of curiosity or because you're already keen to stand for election, please contact Geoffrey Ferrari (Honorary Secretary of the Association) either by using this website's contact form or by email to geoffrey dot ferrari at me dot com.

Further details below the fold.