REMINDER ABSTRACTS DUE: 11/01/2017The Theme

As researchers, no matter our subject, we commit ourselves to a process of generating, analysing and debating ideas. In working towards completion, we continue to gather and negotiate an increasing number of ideas, always looking to constellate them in rich and innovative ways. As these constellations expand and contract, as the ideas fall in and out of view, the documents we retain begin to record a far more expansive sphere of possibility than can be accounted for in a single thesis.

The intent of this interdisciplinary symposium and exhibition is to reflect on the research process, of being in research, and the documents which facilitate and inform it.  The term ‘document’ is open ended, it may refer to text or image; audio or visual; object, artefact or specimen. A document can look forward and back; it can be ‘reached in to’ as a source of ideas and it can be ‘reaching’ in its speculations. From notebook to soil sample, post-it note to statistical data, the document may be the marker of a thought or a way to manage the restless plurality of thinking. Whatever they be, what is of interest is how documents operate as research and the possibilities they enshrine. 

Without End is an academic, supportive environment for postgraduate students and early career researchers to present their research and works-in-progress through the framework of their own documents.

The Venue

The University of Northampton, St. Georges Avenue, Northampton, NN2 6JD.

Submissions

Please send an abstract of up to 300 words for 20-minute oral presentations or images/descriptions of documents to be exhibited, along with a short biography as an email attachment to withoutend2018@gmail.com

The deadline for submissions is 1st November 2017.

Call for Papers

We invite papers discussing the multiple ways documents are essential in the research process as the inspirations, records and keepers of thinking. Topics may include, but are not restricted to:

Potential documents:
thinking outside the conventional definitions of the document

Documents tirelessly studied:
the object, artefact, specimen or the sample 

Notebook/Sketchbook/Journal:
the sites of personal meandering discussion

Small thoughts/Big ideas:
the use and evolution of post-it notes, marginalia and napkin epiphanies

Capturing the temporal:
how to document the experiment, performance or the moment as research

Subjective accounts:
how to document the response or reaction, the subjective, as part of research 

All that’s left behind:
a chance to explore a satellite idea that did not/will not make the thesis

Reconsiderations:
the research documents that unpick and reconstitute understanding

Resurrecting the document:
how to return, reread and reanimate the documents of research

Misadventure/Unexpected ends:
how to know which documented idea to follow

Call for Exhibits

The exhibition looks to survey the way in which documents are used within research across the disciplines. The term document is used loosely, but as starting point, some suggestions may be:

The Note:
The journal, lab-book, post-it or marginalia of a text

The Sketch:
The mind-map, drawing of an object or the act of marking or marking out 

The Analysis:
The chart, graph, diagram, visual representation of data

The Studied Object:
The specimen, sample, archive or artefact

The Visual Record:
The photograph, painting, drawing or video

The Audio Record:
Spoken word, music, sounds created and collected

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