News
Studies into the lives of working class people in Northern Ireland, who should have a say over our natural resources and the use of public space for contested identities are just three of the many top topics be showcased at Queen’s this week.
The ground-breaking event, which takes place from 5-7pm in the Great Hall at Queen’s on Wednesday 2 October celebrates the social and economic relevance of major research projects currently being undertaken in the University’s Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities and tries to come up with answers through collaborative means.
Director of the Institute, Professor John Thompson said: “We are engaged in research that confronts current and next-generation real world issues. This relates to where we have come from, how our individual and community ideas and prejudices are formed, how we model our behaviours, attitudes, and our creativity and how we live together and where we think such beliefs, attitudes and prejudices will take us in the future.
“Much of the joy provided by Humanities research and teaching is that there are no easy or absolute answers to the kinds of research issues we are trained to raise and the uncomfortable questions we perpetually ask about matters that must be confronted in any civilised society. In short, we simply cannot legislate, force feed, or starve out of existence, the kinds of difficult research questions and uncomfortable dilemmas Humanities scholarship always asks of the world.”
Three of the combined research projects include:
- Work by Dr Michael Pierse, which focuses on representations of the lives of working-class people in the North of Ireland throughout the twentieth century. It aims to explore working-class experience in everyday life through its appearance in cultural forms, such as poetry, drama, fiction, song, memoir, television and film.
- Dr Fabian Schuppert, who in times of anthropogenic climate change and general environmental degeneration asks the question of who should control the extraction, use and consumption of natural resources is a hotly debated issue. This research project aims to define normative principles for just and sustainable natural resource governance.
- Dr Dominic Bryan’s research focuses on the use of public space in the context of contested identities in Northern Ireland. He has undertaken significant research into the management of civic space in Belfast, contests over the right to parade and the demarcations of public space using flags and emblems.
Media inquiries to Queen's University Communications Office on 028 9097 3087 or comms.office@qub.ac.uk
