Welcome to the blog of the 21st Century Research Group. The group met last week for the first time this academic year and members from Media, Art & Design, Business & Law, and English were present. We discussed the following questions:

What is the 21st century besides dates? How are we to start thinking about the new period? In what ways is it significant that the new century is also a new millennium? What do we see as the political, economic and social markers of the new century? In what ways are our particular fields of study constructing/contesting the new century? Within our own fields, do we consider there to be particular characteristics, trends or paradigms that we would regard as peculiarly 21st century? And are there similarities/differences/tensions between the disciplines on these questions?

It was an excellent way to begin an interdisciplinary dialogue about 21st century studies and I’m sure we will come back to these questions in future meetings.

See Events and Conferences (on the right hand side) for details of past and future activities.