More about WIP…

v v What is WIP?

v v What's the theme about?

v v What should I write?

v v Who should attend?

v v What's the Brisbane Writers Festival got to do with it?

What is WIP?

The work-in-progress conference is run and designed by post-graduate students and is aimed broadly at Humanities based researchers. It is in its eighth incarnation this year and promises to be just as exciting and stimulating as past events. We are in the process of negotiating the editing of an issue of M/C Journal. Delegates who wish to be considered for inclusion will be required to submit a clean copy of their conference presentation, in MLA style, during the conference. There will also be an opportunity to respond to a general Call For Papers after the conference.

How can I win $100 at WIP?

Retiring Associate Professor Joan Mulholland has donated a $100 prize for the paper that best addresses the conference theme of "Bad Ideas?" If you wish to be considered for this prize, submit a 100-200 word summary of why your idea is the baddest, or not! The prize will be awarded at the close of proceedings. Of course, you do not have to address the theme, but you could win $100 if you do…!

Send your submission to wip@uq.edu.au with “Bad Idea” in the subject line.

What’s the theme about?

HAMLET:	Denmark's a prison.
ROSENCRANTZ:	Then is the world one.
HAMLET:	A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.
ROSENCRANTZ:	We think not so, my lord.
HAMLET:	Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

(Hamlet, Act 2 Sc.II)

Hamlet’s existential angst about thinking may be highly appropriate for a conference about work-in-progress. Moral categories like bad and good are highly contingent; it is only thinking that allows individuals to impose their own morality on objects, actions or behaviour. Certainty is elusive and what may seem (mostly) intractably good to you (like being a post-graduate scholar) may seem decidedly bad to others (those with jobs, money and no existential angst about thinking). Further complicating things, under the subversive delights of slang, bad can also stand in as a term to signal good.

What is different, outside the normal, startling or shocking, that is superficially ‘bad’ may actually be good; is it only the thinking that makes it so? As a post-graduate it is not uncommon to run up against opposition to those ideas others see as bad but that you feel are good. Studying twentieth century French post-structuralist theory may be good to you, but decidedly bad to others! Perhaps your idea is a different kind of bad, one that earned you the despair of supervisors everywhere, but finally with determination and against all odds, has turned good. Or maybe you’ve become trapped in an episode of “when good ideas go bad”, your thesis started out as a safe and predictable whole, but appears to be spiralling dramatically out of control?

The work of any researcher in the ever-broadening field of that nebulous thing, the humanities, is to think about received ideas in surprising and unfamiliar ways, to challenge what is simply thought of as bad or good, to complicate essentialist categories and question passively accepted thinking. Things that may have seemed insolubly bad may in fact be revealed as good precisely because they are dissolute, troubling and inevitably disruptive to accepted norms, including your own. The reverse is also true. Anything is possible. Thinking, the occupation of a post-graduate is important, and troubling intellectual enquiry the goal.

The WIP forum is the perfect place to exorcise/exercise your own unique ideas of bad and good. Bring us your bad ideas but tell us why they are good! Bring us your good ideas and tell us why they are bad!

What should I write?

The theme of bad ideas is intended to be a very broad marker of the kinds of issues and topics of interest to the Humanities post-graduate. Your paper can certainly address the conference theme, but it is fine to present a paper that addresses some aspect of your in-progress thesis, or possible direction. This is an opportunity for you to present a conference paper, and important and inevitable part of all academic life, in a friendly, supportive environment, before you go to that international conference with the illustrious Professor and expert in your field you’ve always admired siting in the front row.

Who should attend?

If you’ve never given a conference paper before, or are contemplating post-graduate study and what to know more, this is the perfect forum for you. If you’re an old pro, with plenty of conference experience already under your belt, come along and share your knowledge, show us how its done! While there will be plenty of post-graduate opportunities to present papers, we are also going to hold some panel sessions, led by professional academics, dealing with issues of importance to post-graduate students (like how to get that job!), and tips on presenting, researching and disseminating your unique knowledge.

What’s the Brisbane Writers Festival got to do with it?

I’m so glad you asked! Need to justify the funding for your trip? Stay a few extra days and you can take in the excellent fun of the Brisbane Writers Festival, running from the 27^th September till 3^rd October. Or check out other great things to do around Brisbane in a list complied by the UQ English, Media and Art History Postgraduate society here.

Last revised: 02/08/2004