Graduate Students' Union

The 2012 Aldrich Interdisciplinary Conference is rooted in a vision of interdisciplinary that encourages participation and communication between departments.  A number of this year's presentations will revolve around the following themes:

Responding to Occupy Wall Street

This theme will give presenters the chance to engage with one of the most significant political movements in recent North American history. The Occupy movement is one that intersects with a broad range of issues, including economics, politics, environmentalism, social work, critical race and gender studies, the appropriation of research for corporate gain, and much more. Responding to Occupy Wall Street does not mean analysing the movement itself (though this is certainly acceptable), but rather giving academics, activists and critics the opportunity to engage with the currents that undergird the movement. This covers a broad range of topics, from research and outreach to economic development, from social and political philosophy to pathology and health and welfare. Climate change, state violence, scholarship and policy, neo-liberalism/conservatism… The list goes on. In what way does the Occupy movement interact and intersect with what we as academics study, research, and create? How can our work affect the political world, and how does the political world affect our work? Moving beyond the simple dichotomy of corporate demands vs. academic freedom, this theme encourages researchers to reflect on how we fit into the global web of power revealed through the genesis of the Occupy movement.

The Possibilities of Pedagogy

Graduate students are, fundamentally, interfaces of knowledge. Whether we aim to be professors or professionals, our academic work is centered on the concept of producing, reproducing, and disseminating knowledge… But what does that entail? This year the theme of Pedagogy and Dissemination will be used as a way to engage with a broad range of questions surrounding our research. Where do the distinctions lie between tacit and explicit, public and private knowledge? How can laypeople participate in and benefit from our research? Can our work ever really be objective, and what are the effects of our subjectivities? What theories, applications, experimentations, and analysis do we use and why? Is what we do meaningful, and if yes, how did we make it so? This theme invites scholars to consider how we can become cultural, scientific, and personal producers of knowledge, discourse, and education.

Testing the Boundaries of Methods & Methodologies

The production of knowledge and approach to research is undertaken through various methods.  Often different types of academic approaches intersect or are combined by the researcher.   This panel offers presenters an opportunity to engage with their method(s) of choice.  Questions to consider are the benefits and/or detriments to embracing a combination of methodologies or a single method.  One might also ask themselves how competing methodologies interact.  Presenters are also encouraged to consider the future of interdisciplinary methodologies.