Subverting the Norm Provisional Schedule

I'm really excited about being added to the programme of speakers for Subverting the Norm: The Emerging Church, Postmodernism and the Future of Christianity, Oct 15 - 16 2010, Drury University, Springfield, Missouri, USA. My presentation, "An Emerging A/Theistic Fighting Collective? A Caputian Introduction to Žižek’s Pneumatology," is currently scheduled straight after Pete Rollins' introduction to Žižek’s Christology, so hopefully they'll be good companion pieces. One of the organisers, Phil Snider, has updated the conference website to include:

A short blurb he wrote to advertise my talk (here)

"On Friday afternoon, U.K. scholar Katharine Moody will present "An Emerging A/Theistic Fighting Collective? A Caputian Introduction to Žižek’s Pneumatology." Her expertise on the highly influential theo-philosophical discourses offered by Slavoj Žižek and John Caputo will help participants get a feel for what religious collectives might look like when informed by the respective thought of these pre-eminent postmodern theorists."

And a bio and photo (here)

"Katharine Sarah Moody is currently in that period of an early academic career that one of Slavoj Žižek's biographers refers to as 'the professional wilderness.' She gained her PhD in Religious Studies in April 2010 from Lancaster University, UK, which used an examination of how the notion of truth is conceptualised in emerging Christian discourse to assess the viability of Radical Orthodoxy and deconstructive theology as theoretical frameworks for the emerging church milieu. She is now working on her first book, and seeking funding to further investigate how theological engagements with European philosophy might supply insights for a radical ethico-political sociality. She is particularly interested in working at the intersection of philosophical thought and the empirical study of religion to explore how contemporary theo-philosophies might be enacted in practice by religious collectives. Katharine is engaged to her partner, Sim, and together they are trying to work out how to have an "a/theistic" wedding ceremony!"

More on Ecumenism next year

As well as the Irish School of Ecumenics' "From World Mission to Interreligious Witness: Visioning Ecumenics in the 21st Century" conference, next year (the centenary of the 1910 World Mission conference in Edinburgh - click here for a firsthand account) also prompts Free to Believe's "Interfaith - The New Ecumenism?" conference, which I saw advertised here by the Progressive Christianity Network (Britain)'s . It will run from Thurs 27 - Sat 29 May 2010 at The Hayes, Swanwick, Derbyshire. It costs £140 including ensuite accommodation and meals, and the keynotes include

• Raficq Abdulla,
• Tony Bayfield (Reform Judaism),
• David Cornick (Churches Together in England),
• Alan Race (Interreligious Insight), and
• Ian Bradley (St. Andrews).

Here's some more blurb. I'm a bit reticent of the language of this blurb, particularly where it implies that members of other religions somehow need to learn to live with and love each other even more than Christians. But, here it is all the same:

"The aim of this conference, organised by Free to Believe, is to explore the possibility that interfaith is the new ecumenism. We will hear from Christians who are committed to this possibility, from Jewish and Islamic speakers about the possibilities they see for it, and from the General Secretary of Churches Together in England, David Cornick, to give him a chance to please for the continued relevance of the work for Christian unity. Where is the cutting edge of unity now?

"In the wise words of the French Roman Catholic Cardinal Mercier: 'In order to unite with one another, we must love one another; in order to love one another, we must know one another; in order to konw one another, we must go and meet one another.' Today, while those words still apply among Christians, do they not apply with even greater force to those of other great world religions like Muslim, Jew, Hindu or Sikh? Can we live together? Can we learn to love each other?"

But, anyway, the reason I've posted a few conferences on ecumenism is that I'm thinking through what I want to do next in my academic career (forgetting for now that I haven't yet finished my thesis!) and the question, "where is the cutting edge of unity now?" is particularly interesting to me. I'm hoping to build on my thesis' identification of an "a/theistic cultural imaginary" to ask how this social imaginary imagines and performs "society" and "sociality." My thesis focuses on emerging church discourse (interview data, published literature, online media, participant observation) so I hope to look next at how what is spoken about actually gets done in practice. It's relatively easy to see how individuals might adopt a deconstructive theology as a worldview, but how might a collective "do" deconstructive theology? How might a collective "be" deconstructive? Particularly given Derrida's concerns about "community"? Anyway, I'll post a bit more about how I see this research developing later, as I'm in the middle of trying to put something more concrete together.

The Culture of "Giving a Paper"

Further to my experiences of philosophical/theological conferences ("Postmodernism, Truth and Religious Pluralism," and "Towards a Philosophy of Life"), in contrast to more sociological conferences ("Gender and Religion," and "Religion, Media and Culture"), I found a copy of an article on academic presentations that we were given at a recent event for aspiring academics that I went to. It's called "How to Give an Academic Talk: Changing the Culture of Public Speaking in the Humanities," by Paul Edwards, and you can download it here.

I was reflecting (here) that the unfortunate norm at philosophical/theological conferences seems to be to read out pieces that have been written to be read, rather than written to be heard. This means that, even if you are familiar with the subject matter, it can be very hard to follow what is being said. Although there were some very well presented papers at the most recent conference I went to (Philip Goodchild, Jack Caputo, Don Cupitt, Neil Turnbull, John Milbank, Todd Mei, etc.), many others would have benefited from reading Edwards' short article.

Edwards notes two reasons academics resort to the literal meaning of "giving a paper," i.e. reading out an article rather than giving a presentation: fear - "it's easier to hide behind the armor of a written paper, which you've had plenty of time to work through, than simply to talk" and it's part of academic culture, which is "something we can deliberately change." Edwards continues by pointing his readers to what effective talks must do, by providing rules of thumb for how to make a presentation "usually better" and "usually worse", and by suggesting important principles for success.

I usually don't actually write a "paper" in the conventional sense until after I've done the presentation, so that's my tip: write a presentation, as a presentation (not as a paper) and then write the paper. Good pointers that Edwards gives and that I've found helpful include:

• talk, rather than read;
• stand up;
• vary the pitch of your voice;
• emphasise key words in your sentences;
• make eye contact with the audience;
• use visual aids (to highlight key points and main arguments, so your audience know where you are going and how you are going to get there)

Something else that I was taught was that you've only really ever got time to make three central points in twenty minutes. Try to do more than that and you'll lose people in details or move too fast.

Edwards makes another good point, too: emulate excellent speakers. I will always remember that Linda Woodhead gave the first academic paper (rather than lecture) I ever heard, in a small informal seminar series at Lancaster University. Her presentation style was friendly but focused and formal, with useful visual aids (okay, so it was Over Head Projector rather than PowerPoint, I'm not going to moan too much about that!). She had a slow but caring speed, and a clear structure. It was on the gender puzzle of the Kendal Project (why are 80% of people involved in the holistic milieu women?) and I was fascinated and enraptured. I wanted to be like her and I still do. I love the way she presents.

Thesis Abstract - June 2009

My supervisor has asked for my most recent abstract to "sound out" potential external examiners with. It's all starting to feel a bit too real, now. Anyway, here's the latest version of my thesis abstract.

"On Truth/Justice: Post-Secular Theology and the UK Emerging Church Milieu."

The cultural and philosophical contexts of the global emerging church, a diverse network interested in Christianity and the postmodern turn, have shaped the ways in which the nature, as well as the content, of religious truth is being conceived. Building upon qualitative data from the UK emerging church milieu, this thesis takes the notion of truth to be an exemplary site for the exploration of what I term “ordinary” phenomenology and theology. Phenomenologically, religious truth involves an event of the radical transformation of subjectivity and behaviour, the substantive evaluations of which are undecidable, contingent and fictive. Reflecting theologically on their determinate interpretations of truth, however, the two divergent strands within the data exhibit different levels of fictionality. The first strand operates with a determinately religious hermeneutic, stressing the possibility of nearing theological alethic realism through dialogue, while the second is more thoroughly a/theistic in relation to both religious and tragic hermeneutics, emphasising the auto-deconstructability of all interpretations.

These strands mirror two post-secular theological sensibilities that have been suggested as apt for the emerging church, James K.A. Smith’s Radically Orthodox ‘catholic postmodernism’ and John D. Caputo’s deconstructive ‘weak theology.’ The preceding discussions of truth raise and answer questions of Radical Orthodoxy’s out-narration of other religions and deconstructive theology’s practical viability. It is suggested that Caputo’s theology, embodied by the second strand in the data, is more fully fictionalist than Smith’s Milbankian post-secularism, and therefore preferable for the emerging church milieu, given the nature of participants’ common phenomenology of religious truth. This thesis contests the suggestion that such a thoroughgoing fictionalism entails alethic relativism, however, through emphasising participants’ exemplarism, following which it is uncertain whether truth is an example of justice, or justice an example of truth.

Key words:

• continental philosophy of religion;
• deconstructive theology;
• emerging church;
• event;
• exemplarism;
• fictionalism;
• justice;
• Radical Orthodoxy;
• truth;
• undecidability.

Philosophy of Life Conference Round-Up

I got back last night from Liverpool Hope's "Towards a Philosophy of Life: Reflections on the Concept of Life in Continental Philosophy of Religion" conference, having had a thoroughly enjoyable (if not totally follow-able) weekend. My own learning style is not comfortable with listening to people read written papers. I'm much more at home with people presenting, rather than reading, work. But philosophers tend to go for the practice of writing a journal paper or book chapter or whatever, and then just reading it out - rather than thinking about their audience's learning styles and altering the piece in order to facilitate rather than alienate others! Only very few of the papers this weekend were easy to follow (even if you knew the material they were talking about) which was disappointing. But I have always felt that sociologists of religion are much better presenters, thereby actually helping their audience follow their argument. Didn't mean to start this post off with a bit of a moan, but philosophers' styles of presentation do tend to detract from the enjoyment of philosophy conferences.

I met a cool bunch of people, including Simon Scott (PhD student at Warwick), Shahida Bari (How To Live blog), Aaron Landau (University of Hong Kong), Todd Mei (University of Kent) and Chad Lackies (Concordia Seminary, here's his blog). It was particularly great to meet Colby Dickinson (KU Leuven) whose paper on Agamben, the messianic and canonicity was really stimulating because of a resonance with my own work. Canonicity, Colby writes, is "the 'desire' for the canonical over and beyond any canon," clearly mirroring the hope against hope for the messianic given voice in but not restricted to determinate concrete messianisms. My paper also charted this dual movement, but in relation to Jack Caputo's historical association with Christianity (I was looking particularly at creation and kingdom in order to refute Jamie Smith's characterization of Caputo's work as allergic to determinate particularities, more of which in a later post) and messianic disassociation. Colby made some intriguing connections with identity formation, and Jack, Colby and I had a useful discussion after his paper about how communities that adopt deconstructive theologies actually do (ir)religious community. It's what I'm hoping to work on next, getting together a proposal for a research fellowship after I've finished my thesis.

Anyway, Jack's paper on "Bodies Without Flesh: The Soft Gnosticism of Incarnational Theology" was very thought provoking, though I know there were a lot of people that were very disppointed that John Milbank only came for his own paper, rather than engaging with Caputo's criticisms of Radical Orthodoxy's incarnational theology. His excuse was that he had, apparently, been stuck on one of the amphibious vehicles (duck) that take you on tours round Liverpool and brokedown (lame). Well, Jack's paper draws from his work towards a sequel to The Weakness of God, currently entitled The Weakness of Flesh. He argued that incarnational theology's incarnation is not radical enough. It is a theology of in-carnation, rather than a theology of carnality. It places "the life of flesh within an economy of bodies without flesh." Like contemporary robotologists, incarnational theology attempts to transform bodies of flesh into bodies without flesh, in the process "betraying" flesh, harbouring a secret "horror of flesh." Instead, he asked, "What would a theology of carnality itself, before or without In-carnation, look like?" "Instead of a transaction between fleshly and fleshless being, I propose a more radical conception of incarnation as an event of flesh itself, of becoming-flesh," of taking, therefore, Christianity seriously, at its word, as the Word made flesh. Caputo is, as I intimated above, not removing himself from the Christian tradition but trying to make the tradition "make good" on its promises. Looking forward to The Weakness of Flesh already!

Being a Young Theologian Today

In November, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Ireland, are hosting a conference called "Interface: Being a Young Theologian in the World," from the 6 - 7th. Here's a bit of blurb: "The conference is aimed at young theologians and has two objectives - to explore the role of the young theologian and to explore the role of theology in contemporary society." That really is a bit of blurb. The only other information I can find about this conference is that abstracts (of no more than 25o words) are to be submitted to interfacemaynooth@gmail.com (along with applicant's educational status: Institution, course, year, etc.) by September 7th, and papers should be 20 minutes in length.

I'm thinking of submitting an abstract but, due to its subject matter, it may well not get accepted. It stems from my supervisors persistence that she thinks what I am doing is theology. Maybe it is. But I don't want it to be. And I don't want to be a theologian... Why is that? I thought I'd interrogate my thoughts about theology and being a theologian today a bit more and see where they got me. The reason that such a discussion may not get accepted is because its more about not wanting to be a young theologian in the world than being one! But maybe this perspective would be of use to others... Maybe not.

But how does one "be" a theologian? Am I one? Do I even know what I am, in order to say I am, or I am not, a theologian? There are clear parallels here with Jacques Derrida's thoughts on "being" an atheist. He tells us he "rightly passes" for one. But "is" he one? Does he know whether or not he is "one"? Is he "one" of anything? Are we not radically plural in our selves? Is there both atheist and theist (and more besides) within him? Is there both a theologian in me and another self, or even other selves, that are not, that do not want to be, and that hate the theologian in me? Maybe I "pass" for a theologian? But that is up to other people, not me!

Maybe the problem I have with being a theologian has to do with the status, or nature, or interpretation of theology itself? Jack Caputo used to refuse the label of theology and of being a theologian, because (in his Derrideanicity) he equated it with "onto-theology" (The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, pp.288-289), with a project that "takes God as an object of conceptual analysis - rather than the addressee of a prayer - and is awash in institutional power" (The Weakness of God, p.301, footnote 1). Now, however, Caputo equates such dreams of a "calm and objectifying" discipline with Religious Studies, whereas Theology is a "disturbing passiong for God" which he loves madly (The Weakness of God, p.301, footnote 2). So maybe I do want to be a theologian? Afterall, Jack Caputo is my kind of theologian.

But, then again, the kind of theologian that Jack Caputo is, is an a/theologian. His theology exists on the slash of undecidability between atheism and theism; his is a theology, for sure. It names God within a determinate tradition - Christianity. But it never forgets that names are subject to endless translatability and substitutability (differance, Derrida would say) such that his theology remembers that it can be determined otherwise. Caputo does not say that he has named God once and for all; damn those who disagree to hell. Instead, he recognizes that what goes under the name of God also goes under other names. So maybe I want to be a/Theologian? (I reflect further on the nature of theology itself in my thesis, particularly on theology as fiction; its also something I cover in my paper for the Towards a Philosophy of Life Conference, which I haven't finished yet!)

Maybe I assume theology lacks humility about itself, about its status as theology, and maybe my presumption of theology as dogmatic is what makes me nervous about it, and about being one. In the West's pluralistic context, is this not how theology is viewed in the world today? Is this not how young theologians are viewed in the world today? As having "the truth" all sown up; damn everyone else's truth?

I don't know. But I thought it would be interesting to interrogate this presumptions a bit further, and to try and get a paper on it accepted to a conference on being a young theologian today. I think I'll call it "On (Not) Wanting to be a/Theologian."

I thought about doing an informal survey of undergrads starting theology and religious studies courses next year, asking about their preconceptions about the disciplines, the boundaries between them, and how they are/how they think they are perceived by "the public." Some useful resources on these topics from the Higher Education Academy's Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies includes Angela Quartermaine's "Theology and/or Religious Studies? A Response from Graduate Students."

Aspiring Academics - Part Two (QAA and Curriculum Design)

At "Aspiring Academics," Dr. David Mossley (the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies manager) gave a workshop on curriculum design. It was actually the first time I had heard of things such as the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), which was established in 1997 to as an independent assessment of HE standards. The website has downloadable subject-specific "benchmark" statements which set out the expectations at each level of degree (click here to download subject-specific statements for undergraduate, and here for Masters level). They set out what any student at any level should be able to do in their discipline. The programme specifications for university courses have to reference these documents, in providing details of intended learning outcomes and the means by which these outcomes are achieved and demonstrated. Also relevant for course design is the Framework for Higher Education Qualifications (FHEQ), which ensures a consistent use of qualification titles that correspond to qualification levels.


David (who works in philosophy) talked about the different ways in which teaching could be linked to research interests; namely, directly and, you guessed it, indirectly. Direct linkage between research and teaching generally comes in the form of relevant content: teaching what you research (i.e. a course of your own design), teaching in the field in which you research, and using your research to directly inform another field. Indirect linkages tend to be drawn through the particular delivery of your teaching: teaching that draws on your research (e.g. using a particular view of autonomy or agency to inform a philosophy of education and actual practice) and teaching that is informed by a more general approach to philosophy, derived from your research.

He also spoke about teaching portfolios. I have a CV (see blog sidebar to left) which I regularly update with my teaching experience, but teaching portfolios are more detailed, including a statement of your teaching philosophy. It coversthe levels of ontology (what is education?), epistemology (how do we know about education?) and ethics (what is the value of education? what is its value in society? why is it a "good"?)

We then moved on to thinking about whether we could design a course around our (current) research interests (the workshop delegates were early career researchers and finishing PhD students). In terms of creating a course that directly links to our research, he asked us to think about what about our research would be appropriate to teach undergraduates, for example, at their level? what criteria could be used to determine how our research fits the needs of an undergraduate audience? and, does it fit with departmental, institutional or national frameworks? He also reminded us that we may need to explore equality legislation and access issues.

My list of courses to offer in an ideal world included:

• Progressive Christianity
• Christianity and Culture
• Christianity and Postmodern Thought
• Deconstructive Theology

Courses to which I could easily adapt my knowledge included:

• Contintental Philosophy of Religion
• Sociology of Religion and Spirituality
• Religion and the Internet
• Religion and Gender
• Research Methodologies

In relation to indirectly using our research, David asked us to think through the following questions. In terms of education and teaching practice,

• What does your research tell you about: the world and beings in it, the contested nature of knowledge, agency and persons, value (ethics, culture, diversity)?
• What implications can you draw from your research for how teaching should be done?

Some useful online resources in this area from the Subject Centre include,"The Qualifications Framework" by George Macdonald Ross and "Linking Teaching and Research" by Danielle Lamb.

The last session of the day ("Career Planning," Rebecca O'Loughlin) basically acted as a round-up of what had gone before. It concluded that the way to maximize academic capital was through publications, teaching and networking. In terms of publications, a strong publishing record is important, but what this means differs across disciplines. For example, Jonathon Wolff (Department of Philosophy, UCL) said journal articles were the way forward in philosophy, rather than monographs. For Mathew Guest (Department of Theology and Religion, Durham) the reverse was true. You can add to your own teaching experience before a permanent position through lecturing, tutoring and doing associated adiministration (e.g. managing modules, designing curriculum, developing curriculum, and working on departmental or module websites). Networking is, as always, important. Becoming part of your academic community (through conferences, discussion lists, etc.) will aid in building a network of contacts who can be a source of feedback on research and let you know about job opportunities, etc. Importantly, departments look for candidates who can integrate their published research with the institution's teaching and the current trends in the discipline.

The powerpoint presentations for Mathew's talk on funding (see my blog post here), and on curriculum design and teaching portfolios can be downloaded from the Subject Centre website, here.

Aspiring Academics - Part One (RAE, REF, and Funding)

My second (of three!) trips to London this week (here's the first [update: and the third]) was to Woburn House for the HEA Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies career workshop for "Aspiring Academics."

The first thing I have to mention about this day is that the cheap advance ticket I bought for my journey was actually in First Class!!! I've never travelled anywhere First Class before so it was all very exciting. Though I declined the offers of various complimentary goodies (tea, coffee, cooked breakfast!!!) because I wasn't made aware that they were complimentary and I thought someone was going to come round with a chip-and-pin machine and I'd have no where to run and hide! Anyway, I think it was pretty obvious to my fellow First Classers that I didn't really belong there. A very nice man (actually a senior member of staff at one of the other secondary schools here in Lichfield - not Sim's school) got me a free bottle of water from the minifridge (Harrogate Spa, no less!) with the word "complimentary" clearly front and centre so that I didn't freak out! Thanks, nice man.

Anyway, to get my train journey cheap I had to arrive two hours early, so I spent a bit of time reading at Euston (I also had four hours to kill the other end of the day!) before heading off to drink complimentary coffee at Woburn House.

The day began with a very brief introduction to the work of the Subject Centre, and then cracked on with the main talks.

Jo Wolff (this photoshoot is a cool thing to include on your uni page) spoke about the shift from the Research Assessment Exercise (here's the RAE2008 webpage, and, as an example, Lancaster University's submissions and results) to the Research Excellence Framework (REF). Mathew Guest spoke about funding opportunities and Joe Cain enthused us with an exercise on networking. As the RAE/REF has remained a mystery to me for a while (staff often presume you know what they are talking about when they use acronyms and Higher Education lingo, and you feel like an idiot for asking) I'll blog mostly about that. But it was great to chat in more detail with Mat. He's lovely. David Mossley was also very informative in his talk about curriculum design, but I think I'll post about that a little later on when I've thought more about it. The career planning session at the end was possibly the weakest, only in that it tended to repeat what we had already covered during the rest of the day. It could have covered a specific aspect of career planning or given us time to actually sit down and, you know, come up with a plan! I think the latter would have been a good idea, particularly as there were people in the room who have already done what we are trying to do and could have given us their perspective on our hopes and dreams from within our own discipline - which hardly ever happens at more general careers events.

In our conference packs we were given some useful resources, including Paul Edwards' "How to Give an Academic Talk: Changing the Culture of Public Speaking in the Humanities" (which you can get online here) Matthew Eddy's "Academic Capital, Postgraduate Research and British Universities: a Bourdieu Inspired Reflection" (online here) and Clare Saunders' "Developing Researchers in th Arts and Humanities: Lessons from a Pilot Programme" (here).

Now, onto the RAE/REF and issues of funding:

There are two sources of funding for research in English HE: the money distributed by Research Councils (like the AHRC and ESRC) and other bodies (where funding is based upon proposals submitted) and that distributed by HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Counil for England) at the time of the RAE. This latter money is therefore backward-looking (i.e. is determined by the quality of previous research) while the former is forward-looking (based on the quality of proposals for future research). The money from HEFCE is therefore (in principle, Jo stressed) for "blue sky" projects, although in practice little is given directly to projects - more often than not going towards the overheads of projects or to fund sabbaticals or library resources.

The instructions for the RAE differ each time it occurs, but this time round (RAE2008) staff had to put forward 4 publications (authored books, edited books, book chapters, journal articles, etc.) which were then assessed and graded from 0 to 5 (click here for an explanation of the ranking system). Jo believes that the REF, although adding various metric indicators to the process and including an assessment of the "social and economic impact" of research, will still boil down to the quality of publications.

It was good to have a bit more clarity on both the nature of the RAE and the proposed form of the REF, as well as to be able to reflect about what this shift might mean for us as nearly submitted doctoral candidates and early career researchers. Jo said that the RAE has introduced a cycle into employment practices, as the more staff that are put into the RAE the more funding the department has a chance of gaining. Before an RAE, therefore, departments high candidates with a good amount of publications in prestigious journals, for example, to boost their chances. This means that, at this point in the cycle, just after an RAE, there are less full time positions on offer and more temporary (unstable) jobs around. However, it's not necessarily all doom and gloom because, as new researchers, we will have fewer publications but those departments who are hiring fulltime members of staff will be less obsessed with hiring someone with an "RAE-compliant" (read chocka of publications) CV. Yay!

Jo's advice, nonetheless, was to try to get at least one article in a really good journal, to increase your employment prospects. Quality is better than quantity.

Online Dissemination of Research Findings

So I recently applied for a job as a Research Associate on the ESRC/AHRC funded Religion and Society Programme, based at Lancaster (Linda is the Director). There were 61 applicants shortlisted and 5 of us that were interviewed, so I was chuffed to get to the interview stage. It was a great experience - a real confidence boost - and its good to know that when I have submitted my thesis I'll be a good candidate for other RA positions / lectureships / research funding.

Part of the interview day involves giving a presentation on how I would disseminate the findings from the large number of diverse projects funded by the Programme. I thought I'd blog about it a bit here, as it was a very interesting exercise. Here you can view the PowerPoint presentation I did.

Online Dissemination of Research Findings

View more presentations from Katharine Moody.

I used research about online reading behaviour to suggest tips for successful online dissemination that informed my suggestion for how the Programme could thematically present project findings. Important factors included the use of subject headings and subheadings, and reports summarising and synthesising findings for different website audiences.

Much of the knowledge about how users read online comes from studies by Jakob Nielsen (of useit.com), an expert in web usability. Of particular interest are his conclusions that users seek immediate gratification, scan pages rather than read them, don't scroll down to read longer pages, and want to exercise agency in navigation.

These findings suggest that successful online dissemination of research

• scans easily (meaning paragraphs are short, key words are highlighted, and further information is bullet-pointed),
• is concise (online text should be half the word count of print text),
• and is journalistic (written in an inverted pyramid starting with conclusions, then key information, and finally background information so the user can determine how much detail to go into).

Successful online dissemination also

• helps users determine the value of a page immediately (i.e. whether or not the contents will be of use to them)
• is user-driven (so that users exercise agency in how the site is navigated and information is approached and accessed)
• and breaks down information by subject (so that there are no excessively long pages). [I obviously haven't mastered this last point in my blog!!!]

All these devices are geared towards attracting users and convincing them of the value of printing off longer documents.

Based on these insights, I developed a strategy for the thematic disseminations of findings from the projects commissioned by the Programme.

I suggested that, firstly, there should be an easily scan-able list of hyperlinked primary headings which enable users to choose how to approach the data. For this particular brief I chose 12 primary headings, which were:

• the 7 Programme research themes (meaning, defining, being; identity, community, welfare and prosperity; religion, violence and conflict resolution; religion, media and the arts; texts, spaces, rituals and objects; education and socialisation; and law, politics and the state),
• religious traditions (so users could go straight to findings related to particular religions),
• social factors (so users could access data on factors such as age, ethnicity, or class),
• policy impact (so users could go to those findings with implications for public policy),
• methodological concerns (because the Programme aims included not only advancing knowledge about religion and society but also promoting interdisciplinarity, developing productive working relationships between researchers and research subjects, and encouraging reflexivity within the study of religion and society),
• and individual research projects (so users could go straught to a summary of a particular project - written by the Research Associate).

Under each of these headings I wrote a brief summary to enable users to determinate the value of following the link further into the data. After following a particular link, the user moves through to a new page where the cluster of themes is broken down further into a table of contents that is also hyperlinked.

I drew up some prospective thematic divisions (for this particular brief) using the suggestions made in the descriptions of the Programme's research themes as well as the available titles and proposals of projects commisioned to date. Clicking on, for example, "law, politics and the state" would take the user through to a contents page where the primary heading is split into subheadings (in this case, religion and law; religion and politics; religion and state; and contested concepts) which then divided again into further categories and subcategories.

Each (sub)title in the contents list takes the user to a report (written by the Research Assistant), which synthesises findings from commissioned projects according to subject, under such titles as "Freedom of speech and blasphemy," "Religion and British identity," "Religious visions of society," or "Tolerance."

Each report synthesising findings is structured using

• the cross-cutting theme heading,
• a summary statement to enable users to determine page-value
• a thematic "non-specialist" presentation of findings (with quick links to sections of the report, again to indicate page-value to users)
• and hyperlinks within the text to more specialist content so users can choose to access more information.

I suggested that these links might enable users to

• read individual project summaries
• download project documents (e.g. tables of data, graphs, questionnaires, bibliographies, or the full text research findings provided by principal investigators)
• visit project / research partner websites
• buy Programme / individual project publications
• read journal abstracts and online articles
• read other online output
• locate other output and related bodies (including newspaper and magazine articles; policy documents; organisations; communities; similar regional, national and transnational research programmes and projects, e.g. Disasporas, Migration and Identities or NORFACE).

Clearly, both the contents pages and the reports drawn up from Phase 1 research findings would be further refined and augmented as and when findings come in from the other two phases of projects. Also, this is a strategy for dissemination via the Internet, where findings are broken down into accessible and manageable "chunks"; other forms of dissemination would require other (probably much broader) subject headings.

I argued that this strategy simplifies the dissemination of research to different website audiences. While the ESRC website, for example, asks readers what type of user they are (general public, academic, public sector, third sector) and then provides differentiated content for different sets of users, this approach multiplies the work load and ends up repeating information.

The strategy I suggested, however, provides a) user-driven "links in" to the data thereby catering to any and all audiences,and b) "links out" to more specialist content for especially interested users. For example, an academic interested in theories of sacralization can follow links to that thematic report, or, if already aware of and interested in a particular project within the Programme, can go straight to the project summary and download full text documents from the PI. Someone from the public sector who is interested in the research that bears on particular polices can access that information through the "Policy Impact" pathway, and someone from the third sector who wants to know about the interrelations between religion and social deprivation or strategies for successful faith organisations, for example, can like choose their own user-specific path into the data. Finally, a member of the general public interested in Islam can access all the findings whihc relate to that religious tradition.

So, my presentation used insights from research on web usability to reflect on successful online dissemination strategies and to suggest that the Religion and Society Programme website should

• allow users to navigate through 12 primary headings
• provide brief summaries of findings clusters to enable users to determine page value
• display easily scan-able contents pages under each primary heading
• enable users to choose "links in" to concise, non-specialist, thematic reports (by RA)
• include links within the reports to allow specialist users to access further content
• make it easy for users to confirm the value of findings
• convince users to print off full text documents (from PI) or buy publications.
  

I made it clear that this was not to preclude other methods of dissemination via the website (e.g. page listing all Programme or project-specific output) but rather to present the strategy I would implement to disseminate findings thematically.

I didn't get the job because I haven't yet finished or submitted my thesis (the other four candidates had) and because the successful candidate already had a wider knowledge of religion and society through working on previous projects, so it wasn't because my strategy for online dissemination sucked - therefore I thought it would be of interest to other researchers who are thinking about setting up websites to disseminate their findings to a broader audience.

Workshop for Aspiring Academics

I'm going to a Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies workshop for "Aspiring Academics" in London in May (19th). It's aimed at people relatively new to teaching or planning a career in academia.

Contributors include:

Professor Jonathan Wolff
(Department of Philosophy, University College London)
Dr Joe Cain (Department of Science and
Technology Studies, University College London)
Dr Mathew
Guest (Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University)
Dr David Mossley
(Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies) and
Dr Rebecca O’Loughlin
(Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies)

Some blurb: "This workshop offers an opportunity for aspiring academics to gather and share information and advice, and to develop the skills necessary for a successful academic career. The event will be useful both for those already teaching and researching in departments, and those hoping to start their academic careers soon. It will also provide a chance to meet fellow academics from all over the country."

Topics covered will include:

Views of the 21st century research landscape
Subject specific approaches to curriculum design
Career planning

The event, including lunch and refreshments, is provided at no charge, and runs from 11:00 to 16:00. Places are allocated on a first come first served basis and the deadline for registration is April 30th 2009; for online booking go here.