SUMMER SCHOOL
The Reactionary Politics Research Network ran its first summer school on the 9th and 10th of September 2024 at the University of Bath.
The summer school aimed to provide PGR students and researchers, whether in academia or beyond, a critical space to develop essential skills to research of reactionary politics. Sessions were led by experts (from senior colleagues to PhD students) on various key issues. Our aim was to create an interactive environment where the participants can bring their own challenges and apply insights to their research projects.
The original project put forward to the GW4 planned for 10 participants. However, buoyed by the success of the RPRN since its launch in May 2024, it soon became clear that a much larger event would be needed, albeit with the same amount of funding. We received 60 applications from 16 different countries and accepted 50 applications.
Sessions in 2024 were be based on:
- Positionality, epistemology and intersectionality
- Hypes, mainstreaming and the terminological minefield
- Researching While Heartbroken: On Safety, Critique, and Utopia
- This is How We Do It: Research Methods for the Study of Reaction
- Critical research in conservative academia
- The Ethics of teaching reactionary politics
Convenors: Aurelien Mondon (Bath), Uygar Baspehlivan (Bristol), George Newth (Bath) and Fran Amery (Bath)
Session leads: Fran Amery (Bath), Katy Brown (Maynooth), Vera Chapiro (Bristol), Emmy Eklundh (Cardiff), Fraser McQueen (Bristol), Touseef Mir (Bath/SOAS), Elisabeth Moerking (Bristol), Aurelien Mondon (Bath), George Newth (Bath), Henrique Tavares Furtado (UWE) and Alex Yates (Bath).
To ensure the widest possible accessibility, the summer school was hosted in a hybrid fashion and attendance was free, thanks to the funding received through the GW4 Building communities programme.
In 2024, the RPRN was able to provide a number of PGR bursaries to facilitate attendance.
Over the two days, over 50 people attended (including lecturers), half in person and half online. While participants were predominantly based in the UK, the bursaries and hybrid nature of the event allowed the participation of people from India, Portugal, Greece, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Australia, Switzerland, Ireland, Turkey, Brazil, Romania, Canada, France and Singapore. The hybrid element was praised by some of the participants in the surveys as particularly welcoming and it was encouraging to see so many stay for most sessions despite some significant time difference.
Participants were predominantly PhD students and early career researchers, but some MA students interested in further studies, some researchers working outside academia and some more senior academics also attended.
