Talks / Papers

• October 6th 2021 – was invited speaker at Times Higher Education Student Festival on ‘Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Went To University’

• September 13th 2021 – delivered a paper ‘Conspiracy Theory, bad faith and the nature of belief?’ at Fantasy & Fandom conference.

• August 4^th 2021 – Delivered an invited masterclass at Cardiff University – ‘Post-Pandemic Learning and Teaching – challenges and opportunities’

What could university look like for the class of 2030? Join the Director of the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching at @SOAS, Prof @davidwebster at #THEdigiweekuk for his take on the ​future of higher education post-pandemic. Register for free: https://t.co/aMGvsteicC pic.twitter.com/pBNkyxJ852

— Times Higher Education (@timeshighered) May 5, 2021

May 2021: Was a speaker at THES Digital Universities Week online event. The recording is available online.

March 2020: Spoke to the Thales’ Well Podcast about the sudden move to On-line learning in the UK HE sector – the talk is still available here.

January 10^th 2020: Delivered invited keynote at SHIFT2020 (University of Greenwich): Pedagogic optimism in the face of dark neoliberal clouds. (view below)

In 2018 I gave the invited keynote lecture at the University of Sheffield’s TELFest, where I spoke about Learning and Teaching in relation to to Social Media, and social inequity / justice.

Other Conference Papers/Project Work – some recent highlights

• May 2021: Invited contributor to THES Digital Universities Week event.

• April 2021: Interviewed by Vice (TV network) for 8-part US series All Eyes on US (still in post-production) on Social Media (on ethical issues)

• June 6 2020: Chaired e-learning section on ‘Flipped Learning’ roundtable at Future EdTech event

• [Postponed: May 6-8 2020, Abo Akademi Finland, Minority seminar on Curriculum for Social Justice will feature my paper Social Justice, Social Media and the Learning Space’]

• February 6^th 2020: Delivered Invited session at NangYang Polytechnic, Singapore: Active Learning, Performance and the Lecture Format.

• January 2020: Delivered two invited papers in Kolkata, India. On the 7^th, at the Society, Religion and Environment conference will deliver Food, environment and class: Ethics as privilege, and at the American Society for Indian Philosophy International and Interdisciplinary Conference, delivered a paper on Social Media and Social Justice. This second paper is an updated version of a session on these topics that I have delivered as a public lecture, and to business groups in a variety of contexts.

• Don’t Cut yourself on all that edge: Contrarian Scepticism as pro-level passive-aggressive performance. (December 2019) University of Leeds, Criticality Symposium

• 30 Minutes To Save The Internet (from itself): Crowdsourcing a blog post in 30 minutes (19^th December 2019; attendees received a short video instruction/topic 7 days before the event)  Edge Hill University, Social Media for Learning in Higher Education annual conference) #SocMedHE19

• Knife-Edge Reflections: Balancing acts in Assessment Innovation. (October 2019) At University of St Andrews: Innovative Assessment in Higher Education conference.

• Social Media (Zombies) and ethics in Higher Education (September 2019) Poster at University of East London Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching event, challenging media stereotypes of students and social media users.

• Invited Keynote for FE event (June 2019) Worcester University subject conference philosophy/religious studies. To be repeated in June 2020 online

• Online learning – lessons from MOOCs platforms, supporting life-long learning and boosting social mobility (March 2019) At Westminster Forum HE event: Technology in higher education – maximising effectiveness, tackling barriers and collaboration with industry

• Students as Assets. (September 2018×2), Invited Keynote for University of Law’s Learning and Teaching conferences, in both its London and Manchester centres. With Dr Nicola Rivers (SOAS/UoG).

• At EduLearn18, in Palma (July 2018), ran an extended, invited workshop on ‘Why ‘grit’ is not great: Challenging students to achieve their best: Why ‘resilience’ is not the answer, and what we can do instead. With Ros O’Leary (UWE)

• Invited Keynote at University of Sheffield TELFest, (June 2018) Tightrope Walkers: Social Media, Equity and Educational Practice

• Social media and Social Justice? Working with students. (June 2018) Gloucestershire Diversity and Inclusion Conference.

• Narratives of Resilience: A Neoliberal Sleight of Hand?’ (May 2018) Invited talk at Between the discourse of ‘resilience’ and death by committee event – Reclaiming collective spaces for academic resistance, Newcastle University. With Dr Nicola Rivers (SOAS/UoG)

• We Need to Recognize that Educators Can’t Solve Neoliberalism. Interviewed by ‘Social Science Space’ blog. With Dr Nicola Rivers (UoG).

• “I didn’t come to university to study this…” Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching: Pedagogy and Practice event at Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence (On March 22nd 2018). With Dr Nicola Rivers (SOAS/UoG).

• ‘Grit, Resilience and Self-Efficacy in Higher Education’, at the The Impact of Teaching Excellence – ANTF and HEA Excellence Awards Symposium event in Manchester, for National Teaching Fellows (March 21st 2018) with Ros O’Leary (UWE)

• ‘Saying no to fun: putting social media in its place’. (December 2017)Social Media for Learning in Higher Education conference, Sheffield, #SocMedHE17.

• ‘What is Academic Challenge? Vulnerability, Resilience, Grit, Stretch, Toughness and conceptualising the student experience.’ the 10th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (November 2017) with Ros O’Leary (UWE)

• The Curious Case of Social Media (October 2017) Public Lecture Series, University of Gloucestershire (I also gave the UoG’s 2016 Christmas Public Lecture – Have yourself a Merry Little Winterval/Christmas/Festive Season, and the 2015 Halloween Public Lecture: Re-enchanting culture in a cynical world: Pagans, Satanists, Atheists, Fictional Religions and more). These represent the promotion of public engagement with Higher Education.

• Interviewed by Bonni Stachowiak, from Teaching in Higher Ed, (October 2017) for their podcast series. Talked about work on resilience, notions of grit, student welfare and mental health, and a host of related topics. Click HERE to go the podcast. With Dr Nicola Rivers (SOAS/UoG).

• ‘Vulnerability as a Revolutionary Act: Resistance against neoliberal discourses of resilience’ Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics, and Ethics (CAPPE), University of Brighton, (September 2017) The paper is now published. With Dr Nicola Rivers (SOAS/UoG).

• ‘Hidden Narratives: Resilience and Vulnerability’ University of Gloucestershire (July 2017) With Dr Nicola Rivers (SOAS/UoG).

• My course is intellectually stimulating and has challenged me to do my best work, with a critical focus on ideas of ‘academic challenge’ University of Gloucestershire’s Inaugural Festival of Learning,  (June 2017) with Ros O’Leary (UWE)

• This list doesn’t include my very many pre-2017 papers/presentations on Philosophy, Learning and Teaching, Spirituality, Buddhism and a range of New Religious Movements and Buddhist Philosophy.