Overview
The Future of Doctoral Writing: Critical Dialogues towards a Manifesto
Event sponsored by BAAL / Cambridge University Press Seminar 2024-25 and by the Graduate School, The Open University.
In The uberfication of the doctorate, Tara Brabazon (2024) asked: “how does the doctorate transform in a university sector losing its purpose, meaning and momentum?”. Accordingly, our Seminar* and future Manifesto offer a collaborative space in which to question and propose what it means to write a doctorate in current and future times by:
· exchanging interdisciplinary knowledge
· extending understandings of what counts as a doctoral text
· generating Principles for a multi-authored Manifesto on the Future of Doctoral Writing
*Pre-Seminar asynchronous engagement on MS Teams from 25 June to 09 July. Link will be sent to those registered.
*Hybrid Seminar – in-person event at the Open University, Milton Keynes on 09 July 2025.
*Post-Seminar asynchronous engagement on MS Teams from 09-23 July. Link will be sent to those registered.
Audience
Doctoral researchers and writers; supervisors; graduate studies policy-makers; research writing scholars and practitioners; academic writing tutors and centre directors; doctoral writing educators and researchers; doctoral pedagogy educators.
Plenary panel
Professor Carol Azumah Dennis is a Professor in Education, Policy and Practice at The Open University. Her research has focussed on all aspects of post-16 education with an emphasis on decolonisation, Ethics and EDI in Research. Her recent inaugural lecture, Decolonial dreams: the unmarked scholar, reimagines the purpose of post-16 education and is available here (starts from 10 mins).
Dr Lucia Thesen is Associate Professor Emerita at the University of Cape Town and has an enduring interest in the relationship between writing and the politics of knowledge. Her most recent publication is Knowledge-Making from a Postgraduate Writers’ Circle: A Southern Reflectory (Multilingual Matters).
Dr Ivana Milojević is a Leading Thinker in Future Studies at Edinburgh University and Director of the Meta Future Think Tank. She has supervised doctoral students in Australia and Serbia and has recently relocated to the Edinburgh Futures Institute, The University of Edinburgh.
Chairs
Dr Julia Molinari and Dr Jackie Tuck, The Open University, UK