Among the many seminars, workshops and research events organised by those working in the discipline are annual conferences at Gregynog, the main conference centre of the University of Wales which is located near Newtown in Powys. It is surrounded by the beautiful Montgomeryshire countryside and Gregynog Hall is set in 750 acres of fabulously landscaped gardens and rolling hills which provide extensive grounds for peace and relaxation as well as stimulating intellectual debate and learning.

Along with staff and research students, our Master’s students and some undergraduate students are invited to attend and have the chance to learn from, and meet and mix with, some of the leading scholars in politics and international relations in a friendly and evocative setting.

The house is about a hundred and fifty years old, though parts of an older house have been incorporated, and there has been a hall on the site since at least the 12th century. From the 15th century onwards Gregynog was the seat of the Blayney family (Blaenau in Welsh). In 1920, the estate was bought by the Misses Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, sisters of Lord Davies, and they developed it as a centre for music, international conferences and fine printing (the Gregynog Press). Both sisters were notable collectors of paintings; the bulk of their collection is now in the National Museum of Wales, but many lesser known pictures and some fine prints and pieces of sculpture remain at Gregynog. In 1960, Miss Margaret Davies made a gift of Gregynog to the University of Wales.

Justice and Global Responsibilities

The Department’s most recent conference at Gregynog was held in November 2007.
 Entitled ‘Justice and Global Responsibilities’, it marked the formal launch of the Centre for the Study of Culture and Politics.

The keynote speaker was Professor David Miller of Nuffield College, Oxford, who spoke on “National Responsibilities and Global Justice”, discussing some of the themes from his new book of the same title.

Other speakers included Professor Simon Tormey, of the University of Nottingham and its Centre for the Study of Social Justice, who gave a paper on ‘Resisting “Global Justice”: how contemporary movements disrupt the emancipatory logic of the West’; Dr Gideon Calder of the University of Wales Newport who discussed the concept of a ‘European ethos’; Dr Peter Sutch of the Politics Department Cardiff University who analysed Allen Buchanan’s work on the concept of international law; Dr Krijn Peters from the Centre for Development Studies, who spoke on the processes of reconciliation in post-conflict Sierra Leone and, from  our Department, Dr Mark Evans, who gave a paper on some of the problems in theorising jus post bellum: just war theory’s account of post-conflict justice.

One of the garden’s quirkier sculptures

Autumn at Gregynog: one of the main walkways in the gardens

‘Justice and Global Responsibilities’ conference: from left to right: Professor David Miller, Dr Krijn Peters, Dr Mark Evans, Dr Gideon Calder.

The Main House, Gregynog