Researching Contemporary Culture is a series of summer workshops for postgraduate and early career researchers.

It takes place from the 14th to 16th July 2014 at the Institute of English Studies, Senate House London.

Researching Contemporary Culture aims to help researchers in the field address an array of issues that currently define the study of contemporary culture by offering workshops and presentations on: developing the impact of research through exhibition, curation, and the championing of particular artists’/directors’/authors’ work; producing research for open access publications; balancing public engagement and research needs; using online participatory culture as a research tool; conducting sustainable research with ephemeral data.

The event will bring together specialist workshop leaders, speakers, and librarians to address these challenges through a research skills development programme of participatory workshops and advice and guidance. Researching Contemporary Culture has evolved out of the work of the Contemporary Fiction Seminar at the Institute of English Studies, and will offer a sustainable research skills enrichment programme appropriate for the study of contemporary culture in the arts and humanities disciplines of the twenty-first century.

Speakers include: Caroline Bassett, Clare Birchall, Kieran Connell, Jeremy Gilbert, Gary Hall, Matt Hills, Roger Luckhurst, Holly Pester, Ernesto Priego, Agnes Woolley. The three workshop themes are: Public Practices, Archiving Now, and Interpretive Communities.

Researching Contemporary Culture is supported by an AHRC Collaborative Skills Award; with additional support from the University of Birmingham, Birkbeck, University of London, and the Institute of English Studies, University of London; it is organised by Dr Zara Dinnen (University of Birmingham) and Dr Tony Venezia (Birkbeck, University of London), conveners of the Contemporary Fiction Seminar.