MANCEPT Workshops in Political Theory

Tenth Annual Conference: 4th – 6th September 2013

The Workshops organising committee would like to thank the convenors and delegates for attending this year’s workshops.

The website for this year’s Workshops can be found here.

Workshop Structure

Workshop Structure  

Convenors organize a workshop which can have between 3 and 12 paper-givers.  The reading of these papers takes place over four sessions, each lasting three and a half hours. For workshops with just 3 paper givers this normally requires only one session, with 6 papers 2 sessions and so on. In most cases, paper-givers will be asked to speak for 30 minutes, and will then field questions and comments for a further 30 minutes. However, workshop convenors are free to organize the length of the presentation and question time as they see fit.  In short, a workshop can last for one session, or it may extend through all four sessions. For example, some may find it convenient to squeeze four paper-givers into one session or use 2 sessions with 2 papers read per session. Also, if a workshop has, say, 5 paper-givers, the second session can finish an hour early. On occasion workshop convenors in the past have had a ’round table’ discussion about a particular topic. This could have up to six speakers and would normally last for only one session.

Please also note that workshop convenors decide which papers to accept in their workshop. (We do not vet papers and workshops range from those which discuss fully developed papers to those where nascent ideas are given their first hearing.) There is no conference policy on whether papers should be circulated to other workshop participants in advance and, again, this is for the workshop convenors to decide.  We do provide a conference website where papers can be posted or they can be circulated among workshop paper givers through email etc.

While participants in the MANCEPT workshops need not be paper givers, and workshop chairs may decide not to deliver a paper, all participants must be attached to a particular workshop and their attendance agreed by with the workshop convenor. Note, too, that delegates are free to attend any workshop they like during the 4 sessions when their own workshop is not meeting.

The websites for previous years workshops can be found here and here.