Triangle

Ways to study politics conference

This free all-day conference is for year 12 and 13 students and teachers, interested in exploring politics, history and other related subjects at university-level. Our academic experts will offer subject sessions covering a wide range of ways to study politics.

We will also be hosting a University of Nottingham admissions session, providing valuable insights and guidance.

2024 conference

Date: Friday 13 December

Time: 9.45am - 3.15pm

Book your place

Bookings now open

Undergraduate students studying in the Monica Partridge building
 
 

 

2024 conference

What is 'Ways to Study Politics'?

The conference is part of the University of Nottingham’s Ways to Study Politics initiative which has the following aims:

  • To demonstrate the wide variety of politics-related degrees available to students
  • To demonstrate the value of studying these subjects, particularly where students have not had the opportunity to encounter them through existing school and college syllabuses
  • To enhance students’ study of A level politics topics by offering perspectives from a range of related subject backgrounds such as history, politics, sociology, education, criminology, philosophy, American and Canadian studies, or the history of art
  • Support teachers in developing their own subject knowledge through a partnership with the School of Politics and International Relations, particularly in the delivery of Subject Interest Group (SIG) sessions
  • To foster closer links between the University of Nottingham and local schools and colleges in relation to the teaching of social sciences subjects

The following courses are available at the University of Nottingham:

  • Politics and International Relations
  • International Relations and Asian Studies
  • Politics and Economics
  • International Security Studies
  • Politics and Philosophy
  • History and Politics
  • Philosophy, Politics and Economics

More information on our politics degrees

 
 

2024 programme

You’ll be able to choose one talk from each taster session to attend. Lunch will include meat, vegetarian and vegan choices. Please let us know when booking if you have any other dietary requirements.

Conference programme
 Time Session 1Session 2

9.45-10.15am

Registration and refreshments 



 

10.15-10.45am

Careers session



 

10.45-11.15am

Keynote:

Should I stay (on ‘X’), or should I go?”: The impact of ‘X’ on News Journalism

How do social media platforms and especially X (formerly known as Twitter) affect news journalism? It is true that ever since X shifted from being a channel for banal chatter to functioning as a newsroom, the platform has had a significant impact on news journalism. This influence is widely accepted both by academic and news media actors, however, there is no agreement on the nature of its impact. For some, X is seen as enabling news journalism. For others, X is seen as distorting news journalism.

In this talk, we will discuss both sides and we will ultimately respond to whether X altered the core of news journalism practice.

Speaker: Dr Chrysi Dagoula, International Media and Communication Studies

 

11.25am-12.10pm

Taster group 1 

The politics of Islam as a religion of peace

Following the 2015 terror attacks in Paris that killed 130 people, British Prime Minister David Cameron stated in Parliament that Islam is a religion of peace. Why does a British prime minister sense the need to define Islam in Parliament, and what is he trying to achieve by doing so? How might Muslims and non-Muslims respond to that?

This session will explore diverse articulations of Islam and its relation to war and peace, among both Muslims and non-Muslims, to help us think through different configurations of the relation between religion and politics.

Speaker: Professor Jon Hoover, Theology and Religion

Can local schools save the planet?

Join this session to consider if and how schools can contribute to net zero objectives. By considering how global aims rely on local experiences and behaviours, we will try to sketch the complexities that animate the field of climate change and sustainability education, considering specific case-studies.

Speaker: Dr Francesca Salvi, Education

12.10-12.55pm

Lunch (Networking lunch with accompanying teachers and limited UoN staff)

 

 

1-1.45pm

Taster group 2 

Identifying as X: can we be whatever we want to be?

Many people place a lot of social and political importance on the notion of identity. But, what does it mean to be the people we are? This session will explore whether the tools of philosophy can help us with this issue.

We will investigate the way in which some facts about the categories we fit into feel like they are foisted upon us by the external world, others appear to be social constructions (but still real and not freely chosen), and some feel truly to be completely up to us. What does it mean call yourself a Swifty, a diabetic, a student or any [x]? In what sense are these identities ‘objective’ or ‘subjective’? Should we give different answers for different identities? We will look in particular at gender, race and class and ask “can we be whoever we want to be?”

Speaker: Dr Joseph Kisolo-Ssonko, Philosophy

Policy, Politics, People and Policing: None of these exist in a vacuum.

This session will examine how all the major issues covered in both sociology and criminology programmes here at Nottingham, exist within the political arena. The key here is that almost all aspects of social life are managed or manipulated by the political agenda, be they personal identity, prisons and punishment, health inequalities, policing, or migration.

We will examine the extent to which politics drives our attitudes to ourselves, to others, and to government and authority itself.

Speaker: Dr Jerry Coulton, Criminology and Sociology

1.50-2.35pm

Taster group 3 

The Politics of Peace in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

In the study of international relations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries, little attention is given to efforts that focused on peace. However, in the years before World War I, groups of transnational activists promoted ideas that prioritised peace over war, disarmament over arms races, and internationalism over nationalism.

Although these efforts could not prevent the outbreak of war in 1914, this session will show how they influenced the development of global governance and shaped post-war efforts to rebuild international society.

Speaker: Dr Dan Hucker, History

What do we owe the future?

Two core questions in political philosophy — What is politics? and What is politics for? — runs underneath our every-day discussions and arguments over various government policies and priorities. Is the core purpose of politics to guarantee bodily safety to allow us to live our lives as we so desire? Or should it have a greater role in ensuring our living well? Or even legislating for what that ‘well’ should look like.

These questions spark lively discussions about our present moment; but furthermore, also pose questions regarding the future. For instance, if politics has obligations for living well in the present, might it also have similar obligations for those living (or potentially living) in the future? And what if living well in the present — a so-called 'high standard of living' — has negative consequences for future generations and the future of the planet. Do future considerations about things like justice, equality, and responsibility not call into question our actions today, however well-intentioned?

This lecture and discussion will offer some philosophical tools to help students of politics grapple with these highly relevant issues.

Speaker: Dr Blake Ewing, Politics and International Relations

2.45-3.15pm

Admissions guidance