From the Director
Each month Professor Gregory Radick surveys new developments in and around the LHRI.
What are years? Who/what is the good/bad migrant? How should bilingual children be educated? Must textual criticism be a no-go area for Islamic studies? What becomes of disability in the age of the robotically augmented body? Why is human freedom often a casualty of city life -- and can anything be done about it? These are among the questions being pursued this year within the LHRI's Sadler Seminars programme. As questions go, they're disciplinarily awkward, not belonging comfortably to any single discipline, but instead requiring collaboration across the disciplines. Supporting interdisciplinary inquiry is part of what the LHRI is for, and the Sadler Seminars programme is our flagship. It's the more pleasing to announce that the Faculty now invites applications for the 2017-8 series.
The application deadline isn't until 1 May, so there's plenty of time to hammer out a research agenda, identify collaborators, and figure out what you want to accomplish over the course of a year of seminars-plus -- where the "plus" can include workshops, public events, a postdoctoral assistant, and/or whatever else you reckon will make the difference to achieving intellectual lift-off. It's a chance to think big and take risks. Some projects, maturing for years, will already fit the bill beautifully. Others will be no more than gleams in the eyes of their begetters. Both sorts of project are welcome. We ask only that applicants find at least one collaborator from a School outside their own. (If your collaborator's School is in another Faculty, that's bonus points.)
Over the next few months, I hope to share testimonials from current Sadler Seminar convenors about the seminars, where you can go with them, and why you might apply to run one. Next month I'll announce details of the (very light touch) application procedure. For now, please feel encouraged to drop me a line if you're considering applying, as I'll be glad to help you develop your proposal. And do come along to any of the currently running Sadler Seminar events that might appeal. You can find schedules for all of them here.
Finally, I'm sure all will want to join me in congratulating colleagues on some splendid research funding successes: Parikshit Goswami (Design) for a grant from Marks & Spencer to work on man-made cotton; Stuart Murray (English) for a Wellcome Trust Seed Award for his project on augmenting the body (yes, the topic of the Sadler Seminar he co-convenes with Sita Popat); Graham Loud (History) for a 2-year Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship in support of his work on the abbey of Cava near Salerno; Ingrid Sharp and Francis Weightman (LCS) for AHRC Follow-on Funding grants on, respectively, women's activism in the 1918 Kiel uprising and the engagement of new audiences in reading Chinese; Simon Popple (Media & Communications) for a NERC award in support of his research on seismic cities; and Johanna Steibert (PRHS) on the award of a Humboldt Fellowship to pursue her research into the Hebrew Bible.
Greg Radick
LHRI Director
G.M.Radick@leeds.ac.uk / x33269
