Swansea University CENTRAL SCHOLARSHIPS webpage:  www.swansea.ac.uk/postgraduate/scholarships/research

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A republish of my 2020 paper on “Baudrillard’s Photographic Theory” was published today in the online magazine NON.

Interested in doing an MSc by Research in Social Theory and Space? This funding opportunity would fully cover the tuition fees if you did it Full Time (1 Year). Contact me/see me if you want to apply.

You will need to apply quickly to secure a place at Swansea University as a part of the funding scheme.

The James Pantyfedwen Foundation distributes grants to postgraduate students from Wales studying for a Master’s or PhD award. Grants will be offered towards the payment of tuition fees only, up to a maximum of £5,000 in each case. The closing date for any applications for the 2022-23 academic year is 31 MAY 2022 – and the Trustees will not consider any applications received after the closing date. Details and application forms can be downloaded from the James Pantyfedwen website on www.jamespantyfedwen.cymru.

If you are from Wales and would like me to supervise your research Masters or PhD please get in touch with me: r.g.smith@swan.ac.uk. You will need to apply quickly to secure a place at Swansea University as a part of the funding scheme.

The James Pantyfedwen Foundation distributes grants to postgraduate students from Wales studying for a Master’s or PhD award. Grants will be offered towards the payment of tuition fees only, up to a maximum of £5,000 in each case. The closing date for any applications for the 2022-23 academic year is 31 MAY 2022 – and the Trustees will not consider any applications received after the closing date. Details and application forms can be downloaded from the James Pantyfedwen website on www.jamespantyfedwen.cymru.

The War in Ukraine Will Take Place – Liberation

Swansea University is the only Welsh University on strike; but we have a strong statement from the Welsh Government today on how UUK need to start acting in the interest of University staff:

“Statement of Opinion – OPIN-2022-0260 – Welsh Parliament (assembly.wales)

OPIN-2022-0260 Swansea University and Open University Action (e)Tabled on 16/02/2022

This Senedd:

1. Recognises that, throughout the pandemic, academic staff have worked hard to keep education open and stabilise the sector and that, now the emergency has passed, university lecturers face a 35 per cent cut in pension entitlement.

2. Recognises lecturers’ deep commitment towards their students and that the decision to strike is never easy.

3. Calls upon Universities UK to:

a) return to the negotiating table immediately to avert damaging strikes and allow a post-pandemic evaluation of the pension fund.

b) work with staff to devise a UK-wide plan to re-build the sector by eliminating precarious contracts, managing workloads and addressing inequality.”

UCU strike action here in the UK over pension cuts (and poor pay, job security, fairness, etc.). I am seeing our strike as an opportunity to get some reading done (when I am not on the picket line that is). A few books I picked up in the last couple of weeks look like an interesting distraction from the dark cloud of personal and collective financial doom that striking (always a last resort) inevitably entails.

Audio of the Rome conference talks:

My contributions:

Smith RG (2019) A World Beyond The Real: Jean Baudrillard’s Photographic Theory, in Extending Baudrillard: Space, Image, Representation, Volume: MACRO (Museum of Contemporary Art (Rome)) Catalogue, 21-11-2018, Unpaginated

Smith RG (2019) Introduction – International Symposium on Jean Baudrillard: ‘Baudrillard Redux’, in Extending Baudrillard: Space, Image, Representation, Volume: MACRO (Museum of Contemporary Art (Rome)) Catalogue, 21-11-2018, Unpaginated

By Alex Taylor
BBC Entertainment reporter

I was interviewed for this BBC article published today. Quote extracts:

“Where for Baudrillard there was no escape from the simulation, the Wachowskis offered hope in the “promise of a true natural world ‘unplugged’ and separate from the Matrix”, explains Prof Richard Smith, editor of The Baudrillard Dictionary. Baudrillard was not a fan of the change. “The Matrix is surely the kind of film about the matrix that the matrix would have been able to produce,” he said.”

For Prof Smith, the film’s Marxist narrative evokes Plato’s allegory of chained prisoners in a cave “who mistake the shadows on the wall for reality”.

As Morpheus puts it: “The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.” The pill scene “urges human beings to free themselves from the world of appearances”, says Prof Smith.