Brenda hosted a four day international academic writing retreat/work-in-progress conference in her workshop in Green Point Cape Town in August. It was wonderful to work with such creative people, who are continuing to refine and polish their writing.

In early May 2016, Clarke’s Bookshop hosted the launch of Brenda’s latest book, “Floating in an Antibubble.  From South Africa to Salford, A Mosaic of Pictures and Stories”.  Publisher Kassahun Checole of Africa World Press flew from the US to Cape Town for the event.

Recent writing workshops for UCT’s Graduate School of Business Executive MBA programme have included:

“The Hunting of the Research Topic” (October 2015) and

“Finding your shtick” (July 2015)

Brenda runs academic writing workshops on a regular basis. If you are interested in joining one of her groups, please contact her at:

burnishwriting@gmail.com

24^th – 27^th August, 2015, Brenda ran a four day writing retreat, a ‘writeshop’, on behalf of AfricaLics – African Network for Economics of Learning, Innovation and Competence Building Systems, an organization based in Nairobi.

The event was co-hosted by IERI – The Institute for Economic Research on Innovation, Tshwane University, where the writeshop was held. The event brought together six groups of researchers, from a range of countries across the continent. The groups are collaborating on various research topics relating to the issue of innovation and economic development.

Participants included emerging scholars still working on Ph.Ds and accomplished Professors with publication track records. The retreat enabled the groups to work together face to face and to transform their reports into more sharply focused papers for submission to journals. By the end of the four days, all the groups reported that they had made great progress towards publishing their findings.

Research Publication Completion workshop: bring a draft, take home a paper for publication

 

Delivered remotely by Professor Brenda Cooper (from Cape Town, South Africa)

Facilitated by Vera Barron, Research development manager, Salford University

Friday 3^rd July and 17^th July 2015 10am – 12 (noon)

Four groups of three will then each agree on a time to Skype with Brenda to discuss their papers after the 3^rd July and before the workshop on the 17^th July.

More about this workshop:

The University is hosting an online, peer support-based, developmental workshop for research colleagues at all stages of their career. All researchers who are currently working on a paper are invited to attend.  By the end of the workshop miniseries, it is expected that participants will leave with a paper that is ready for publication.

During the course, led by external consultant Professor Brenda Cooper, participants will explore the nature of producing knowledge in different research fields and present their papers to the group for feedback.

There will also be dedicated time off line, to revise the abstracts of the paper in light of discussions and to share these revisions.

A follow-up discussion and feedback sessions with Professor Cooper will take place via SKYPE with each participant and their peer mentor.

Places at this workshop are limited to 12, as these sessions represent a genuine cost to the University, therefore please book as early as possible and ensure that you will be able to attend both the online sessions and take part in the peer support.

Centre for Postcolonial Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London

Eight chickens and there was this goat. Academic Knowledge and Not Knowing 

Brenda Cooper (Emeritus Professor, University of Cape Town)

Wednesday 13 MAY: Room 256 Richard Hoggart Building, 4-6pm, Goldsmiths

We have to be knowledgeable, us academic writers, otherwise what is the point of us? It is a truism to state that we read and research with the purpose of adding to the store of knowledge in the world. Knowledge, however, is always partial. It would be academic hubris to assume otherwise. This is so in general. More specifically and politically, however, there is the academic research about people and places by researchers with backgrounds different from their subjects. The ignorance of fundamental aspects of the lives of these subjects is not always written into our findings. The challenge here is how to fashion our academic writing such that it expresses both our knowing and also our not knowing simultaneously. My question is how might our declared not knowing be written into the form and style of our writing?