{"id":17524,"date":"2019-05-01T10:41:23","date_gmt":"2019-05-01T09:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/?p=17524"},"modified":"2019-05-01T15:03:09","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T14:03:09","slug":"populism-imperial-insects-and-cold-war-era-childrens-books-new-university-research-fellowships-awarded-in-arts-and-humanities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/2019\/05\/01\/populism-imperial-insects-and-cold-war-era-childrens-books-new-university-research-fellowships-awarded-in-arts-and-humanities\/","title":{"rendered":"Populism, imperial insects and Cold War era children\u2019s books \u2013 new University Research Fellowships awarded in arts, humanities and social sciences"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five Reading academics at the top of their game have been awarded University Research Fellowships \u00a0to develop their work in the arts, humanities and social sciences over the next year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Each has received \u00a310,000 to cover teaching replacement costs and research expenses and has been selected based on the originality, rigour and significance of their applications.<\/p>\n

The aim of the fellowships is to support research outputs across the University’s five themes (Environment, Food, Health, Heritage and Creativity and Prosperity and Resilience) that show ambition and constitute a step change in the work of the applicant. Here are the five successful projects:<\/p>\n

The global rise of populism<\/strong><\/p>\n

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From Trump in America and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to the FN, AfD and LN in Western Europe, populism and anti-immigration policies are on the rise across the globe. Dr Daphne Halikiopoulou<\/strong> (Politics and International Relations<\/strong>) will look at the bigger picture, researching the common aspects and differences between far right populist parties world-wide, addressing our gap in knowledge about the rise of far right populism on a global scale. She will identify different patterns of nationalist narratives and how they appeal to different social groups in different countries. The work promises to provide the first robust, evidence-backed answer to one of the biggest challenges our societies face \u2013 the rise of far right parties against a backdrop of increasing economic, cultural and personal insecurity.<\/p>\n

Experimenting on linguistic meaning<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The philosophy of language is informed by linguistic experiments \u2013 but how can experiments tell us about something as intangible as the meaning of a word? The meaning of many expressions is not fixed before their use in conversation; meanings undergo a process of mutual adjustment and negotiation. Nat Hansen (Philosophy)<\/strong> will develop experiments using conversational contexts that are designed to capture the dynamic processes by which meaning is negotiated and fixed. The work will expand the practical techniques available for investigating meaning and broaden our theoretical understanding of linguistic meaning by applying experimental approaches from the cognitive and social sciences to central issues in philosophy of language.<\/p>\n

Learning maths through creating stories<\/strong><\/p>\n