Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck, University of London

Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck, University of London Psychosocial Studies explores how psychic, social and historical forces shape individuals and societies

Join us on Tuesday for our postgraduate conference!
19/09/2025

Join us on Tuesday for our postgraduate conference!

Throwback to   2016, when our beautiful students joined the parade with a banner with the names of our Level 4 modules o...
05/07/2025

Throwback to 2016, when our beautiful students joined the parade with a banner with the names of our Level 4 modules on it.

4 June 6 pmHOW DO WE CHAMPION AID, REPARATIONS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN A NEW WORLD?Professor Patricia Daley (Oxford Univer...
02/06/2025

4 June 6 pm

HOW DO WE CHAMPION AID, REPARATIONS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN A NEW WORLD?

Professor Patricia Daley (Oxford University) 
Professor Sophia Price (Birkbeck, University of London)
Dr Jasmine Bhatia (Birkbeck, University of London)
Professor Karen Wells (Birkbeck, University of London)
Dr Ben Worthy (Birkbeck, University of London)
Dr Kalpana Wilson (Birkbeck, University of London)

https://www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event/49255/social-sciences-festival-2025-how-do-we-champion-aid-reparations-and-social-justice-in-a-new-world

04/05/2023

Psychosocial Studies Summer Programme - view events and sign up here:

14/04/2023

The next MA Culture Diaspora Ethnicity & Race Forum at Birkbeck Public Lecture will take place on Tuesday 2 May 2023 6.00 – 7.30 pm

Room B01, Clore Management Centre, Birkbeck College

To book your place for the event, sign up here: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/events/remote_event_view?id=36530

'On Reactionary Democracy and the Mainstreaming of Racism and the Far Right: Where Next?'

Two years after the publication of Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream, the picture has both changed dramatically and yet many trends have been confirmed. While Donald Trump was defeated in the 2020 election, the insurrection on 6 January 2021 demonstrated the extremism behind his rise and his spectre for the next election continue to shape and haunt US politics. In France, the far and extreme right have been polling over 30% in the lead up to the presidential election. In the UK, while the far right itself seems to have disappeared, its ideas have never been more mainstream. Wider global crises, from the pandemic to the climate emergency, have shown that far and extreme right narratives can take hold and push us ever more towards reactionary, authoritarian politics.

It is in this context that this talk aims to take stock of the latest development and consider them through the various lenses we deploy in the book. Key to our argument is that to understand and combat far right politics, we must understand the role the mainstream and mainstream constructions plays in its rise

Speakers: Aaron Winter and Aurelien Mondon

On Reactionary Democracy and the Mainstreaming of Racism and the Far Right: Where Next? By Aurelien Mondon and Aaron Winter

The event: Visceral Bodies SymposiumThe speaker: Lisa BaraitserDates: 27th-28th April 2023We are excited to announce tha...
03/03/2023

The event: Visceral Bodies Symposium
The speaker: Lisa Baraitser
Dates: 27th-28th April 2023

We are excited to announce that Professor Lisa Baraitser (Birkbeck) will be giving a keynote lecture at the Visceral Bodies symposium. on day 2 of the Visceral Bodies Symposium, from 17:00-18:30. Lisa Baraitser will hold the keynote lecture and discussion, The Labour of Love and the Maternal Death Drive.

This two-day, transdisciplinary symposium will explore how renewed attention to the human (and specifically female) body in philosophy, politics, literature and psychosocial studies has paved the way for a rethinking of motherhood, reproductive loss, disability and death beyond the biological category. How does this reflection contribute to naming, elaborating, and making visible concrete aspects of human life in their connection to gender, race, sexuality?

Keynote speakers: Professor Lisa Baraitser, poet Rachel Long, Dr Anna McFarlane, Professor Tracey Reynolds and Professor Stella Villarmea

Head to the Visceral Bodies Symposium website for more information and to book tickets: https://visceralbodies.squarespace.com/

The Time of Care: Concluding ConferenceThe waiting is over (?)The Wellcome-Trust funded Waiting Times project would like...
03/03/2023

The Time of Care: Concluding Conference
The waiting is over (?)

The Wellcome-Trust funded Waiting Times project would like to invite you to register for our end-of-grant, hybrid conference: The Time of Care: Conclusions from the Waiting Times Project. The event will take place on Tuesday 28th March – Wednesday 29th March 2023 at Friends House, London. You can register for online attendance here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-time-of-care-a-waiting-times-hybrid-conference-tickets-490483909577

or in person attendance here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-time-of-care-a-waiting-times-conference-london-tickets-537308362777

Please note: For in-person attendance, there are separate tickets for each full day of the conference. If you would like to attend the full conference, please ensure you register for both days. Once you have completed registration information for one ticket, you can save time at checkout by using the ‘copy ticket data’ function to copy your responses to the second ticket.

What we've been doing
Waiting is one of healthcare’s core experiences. There from the time it takes to access services; through the days, weeks, months or years needed for diagnoses; in the time that treatment takes; and in the elongated time-frames of recovery, relapse, remission and dying. However, though often discussed and considered in terms of waiting lists and times, and especially in relation to health and social care crises, waiting is also vital to practices of care.

Waiting Times has explored what it means to wait in and for healthcare by examining lived experiences, representations, and histories of impeded and delayed time. The project has mobilised a range of artistic and engaged research methodologies, as well as ethnographic, philosophical and historical investigations to consider different forms of suspended, elongated, and “non-productive” temporalities in different sites and practices: in forms of watchful waiting and recurrent waiting with that take place in general practice, mental health services, and trans care; within modes of chronic care and forms of time that are held and unfolded within psychotherapy; and as part of cultural framings, experiences, and care provided at the end of life.

The conference offers a final chance to bring our researchers, research partners, and invited contributors to engage with this work and reflect collectively on its meanings and implications. (See below for our programme!)

We hope you can join us, and we very much look forward to seeing you in March!

Professor Lisa Baraitser and Professor Laura Salisbury (P*s), Kelechi Anucha, Jocelyn Catty, Stephanie Davies, Michael Flexer, Martin Moore, Martin O’Brien, Jordan Osserman, Deborah Robinson and Lizaveta van Munsteren.

Conference programme
All times GMT

Monday 27th

6pm - Performance of Coughing Coffins by Martin O'Brien. Horse Hospital, Colonnade, WC1N 1JD. Separate registration here.


Tuesday 28th

9am - Welcome (to waiting)

9.30am - Introduction (Lisa Baraitser and Laura Salisbury)

10.30am - Speaking of Waiting

Two panels exploring our engaged research methodologies, led by Michael Flexer and research partners in the Waiting Times project.

Lunch

2pm - Watchful Waiting in NHS General Practice

Papers by Stephanie Davis, Michael Flexer and Martin Moore (Waiting Times team) on themes of frequent attendance and practices of watchful waiting in general practice, followed by responses by invited speakers. Confirmed speakers include Professor Felicity Callard (University of Glasgow), Professor Todd Meyers (McGill University), Professor Femi Oyebode (University of Birmingham & formerly Consultant Psychiatrist, National Centre for Mental Health), and Dr Jonathon Tomlinson (GP).

5pm-6pm - Drinks and Canapes

6pm-8pm - Arts Research Showcase

This panel will showcase and explore the arts methodologies and artistic outputs of the project. It will include a screening and discussion of Time Being, a film by Deborah Robinson and Ruairi Corr, and a lecture by Martin O'Brien.


Wednesday 29th

9am - Welcome

9.15am - Introduction (Lisa Baraitser and Laura Salisbury)

9. 30am - Waiting in Late Times

Papers by Laura Salisbury, Kelechi Anucha, and Michael Flexer with Martin Moore (Waiting Times team) considering the "meanwhiles" of healthcare and the post-war, followed by responses by invited speakers. Confirmed speakers include Dr Lara Choksey (Univeristy College, London), Professor Ghassan Hage (University of Melbourne), Dr Christine Okoth (King's College, London), and Professor Adam Piette (University of Sheffield).

Lunch

1pm - The Psychic Life of Time

Papers by Lisa Baraitser , Jocelyn Catty (Waiting Times Team) and Professor Raluca Soreanu (University of Essex) on the temporalities of psychoanalytic care, with a response by Professor Katie Gentile (CUNY). Followed by papers from Jordan Osserman (Waiting Times team), Professor Jules Gill-Peterson (Johns Hopkins) and Avgi Saketopoulou (NYU) on the temporalities of trans health.

4pm - Plenary Roundtable

Reflections on the project and its work by members of the project and the project Steering Committee. Confirmed participants include: Professor Felicity Callard (University of Glasgow), Professor Katie Gentile (NYU), Professor Sally Sheard (University of Liverpool), Professor Mathew Thomson (University of Warwick).

The Wellcome-Trust funded Waiting Times project would like to invite you to register for our end-of-grant, hybrid conference: The Time of Care: Conclusions from the Waiting Times Project. The event will take place on Tuesday 28th March – Wednesday 29th March 2023 at Friends House, London. Y...

Address

Birkbeck, University Of London, Malet Street
London
WC1E7HX

Opening Hours

Monday 10am - 6pm
Tuesday 10am - 6pm
Wednesday 10am - 6pm
Thursday 10am - 6pm
Friday 10am - 6pm

Telephone

+442030738045

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