Yit Xiang Wong, University of Warwick
I am glad to announce the publication of Reinvention’s third issue of 2024: ‘Blueprints of Knowledge’. To close this year’s publications of the journal, we present to you a selection of articles spanning across the disciplines, from politics to public health. The theme of this issue is Blueprints of Knowledge, which explores the role of models and frameworks in helping us to understand the world around us. Blueprints give us the power to capture our world on paper, allowing us to continually add detail and nuance to better reflect our reality.
Before I introduce the issue, I want to highlight the development of our Reinvention blog by our outgoing marketing coordinator, Ines Robledo. Our blog has focused on sharing the personal stories of our authors, and currently features an interview with authors from our WorldCUR/BCUR special issue, Lauren Dowdeswell and Halima Nabirye. Additionally, our Writing for Academic Publishing workshop recording is also now available online via our blog.
In this edition, we bring to you two original papers.
Daniel Knoth’s ‘The Dimensions of Political Speech: Conceptualising the Origins of Political Hostility’ establishes a novel framework to study political polarisation in the United States. Knoth categorises political speech into three distinct dimensions – locutionary, perlocutionary and illocutionary. Through this new framework, Knoth identifies that the source of political hostility originates from the changes in the illocutionary dimension.
Joe Brooks’s ‘Modelling Wellbeing During Public Health Interventions for Respiratory Epidemics’ is one of the two papers we have in this issue that revisits the COVID-19 pandemic. Brooks does exactly what you should do with a blueprint – increase the level of nuance. They build on existing COVID-19 models to include wellbeing in varying social settings. This accounts for the lack of attention given to mental health in pandemic modelling. Brooks finds that the existing strategy of workplace closures was not only effective in reducing the rate of infections but was also beneficial to individual mental wellbeing.
Finally, this issue also features a special section featuring a new module from The University of Warwick’s Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) degree programme. As a graduate of the programme, it is with great pride that I introduce to you a series of essays originating from undergraduate students who took the new module on the philosophy, politics and economics of food. The module was led by Laura Gelhaus, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies and Director of Personal Development for Warwick’s PPE degree programme, the special section explores the complexity of food systems in our world.
To echo the theme ‘A Social Evolution: Capturing the Essence of Change’ of our first issue this year (Volume 17 Issue 1), our authors show how blueprints evolve. The papers in the special section and Daniel Knoth’s paper ‘Dimensions of Political Speech - Conceptualising the Origins of Political Hostility, create novel frameworks to help us understand issues from a different perspective. Brooks shows how blueprints can be improved, factoring in unaccounted variables or introducing new technological concepts. In this ever-changing reality, undergraduates will be the architects to design a better world for us.
To cite this paper please use the following details: Xiang Wong, Y. (2024), 'Editorial: Blueprints of Knowledge', Reinvention: an International Journal of Undergraduate Research, Volume 17, Issue 2, https://reinventionjournal.org/index.php/reinvention/article/view/1783/1382. Date accessed [insert date]. If you cite this article or use it in any teaching or other related activities please let us know by e-mailing us at Reinventionjournal@warwick.ac.uk.