1. A rejection of Humean ‘constant conjunctions’ as a deficient, because empiricist basis for conceptualizing social reality and causality.
2. A stratified ontology of the social order, endorsing emergence and the causal consequences of the second or third-order interplay between emergent properties and powers. In turn this spells acceptance of upwards and downwards causality between strata.
3. A refusal to assign automatic priority to structure (or culture) versus agency when accounting for causation in the social domain.
4. A reliance upon CR’s ‘three pillars’ for explanatory adequacy:-

• Ontological realism
• Epistemic relativism
• Judgemental rationality

emma.evans@bristol.ac.uk

Thank you for inviting me to the group.

I am at the tail end (I hope) of my Doctorate at Brighton University. My area of interest is reading in primary school, focusing on inference. I am embracing CR and using it as a meta-theory to guide my research, particularly the concept of structure/agency.

Just sharing this article as promised.

Swati

I am just about to start my PhD in Education and Social Justice at Lancaster University. I am originally from the U.K. but I have lived abroad for six years in Palestine, Iraq and now Kazakhstan teaching EAP and Writing courses in universities. My research interests are higher education in post conflict societies and how HE can form part of the peace-building process. I hope CR can give me such much needed guidance during this work. I look forward to meeting with you all!

The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci | Verso Books

First release of Perry Anderson's classic study of the great Italian Marxist in paperback book form

An explosive analysis of the central strategic concepts in Gramsci’s thought, as revelatory today as on first publication in New Left Review in 1976. This landmark essay has been the subject of keen debate across four decades for its disentangling of the hesitations and contradictions in Gramsci’s highly original usage of such key dichotomies as East and West, domination and direction, hegemony and dictatorship, state and civil society, war of position and war of movement. In a critical tribute to the international richness of Gramsci’s work, Anderson shows how deeply embedded these notions were in the revolutionary debates in Tsarist Russia and Wilhemine Germany, in which arguments criss-crossed between Plekhanov, Lenin, Kautsky, Luxemburg, Lukács and Trotsky, with contemporary echoes in Brecht and Benjamin. A preface considers the objections this account of Gramsci provoked, as well as a memorable intervention by the late Eric Hobsbawm.

There will be one session every three weeks (term time only), with the first session on 23 March. The program will cover basic critical realism in the first 6 sessions from March to July 2026, dialectical critical realism in the following term in 5 sessions from September to November 2026, and the philosophy of meta-reality in 4 sessions in a third term from January 2027 to March 2027. Seminars will start at 16:00 UK time and run for approximately one hour.

The focus of these seminars will be on ensuring that all those who join, whether they are new to critical realism or are just interested in deepening their knowledge in one specific aspect, gain from taking part in a guided discussion in a welcoming online environment.

If you would like to register for the reading seminar, please e-mail Onur Ozmen at o.ozmen.14@alumni.ucl.ac.uk.

Some questions to consider as Jeongbae prepares himself for the viva:

1. This chapter (#5) draws on several concepts from CR, including stratified ontology, emergence, and the four-planar social being. Does the chapter provide enough grounding to follow the argument on its own terms, or does it assume too much prior familiarity that I might need to explain and defend in the viva? Are there points, where you thought, a reader would feel uncertain about why a particular distinction mattered?

2. The chapter’s central claim is that information literacy is best understood as an emergent capability, one that is real but irreducible to the individual competencies or social conditions from which it arises. What aspects of this framing of the argument might need further explanation in the viva and what type of questions might examiners ask about this?

3. Building on the critical realist framing, does the chapter make a convincing case that this ontological shift actually resolves problems in existing information literacy scholarship, or does it read more as a redescription of familiar issues in new vocabulary? What aspects of this argument do you think might attract the most scrutiny from examiners, and what would you advise me to be prepared to defend?

Jeongbae Choi has recently published two articles based on his doctoral research.

Choi, J. (2026). Reimagining Information Literacy as Capability (ILaC): A Conceptual Framework. Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/24750158.2025.2606647

Choi, J. (2026). Aporias of information literacy: a critical review. Journal of Documentation, 82(2), pp. 467–493. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-08-2025-0236

Her three questions are:

1.      Where does the core argument become unclear or difficult to defend?

2.      What would be your strongest challenge from a critical realist perspective, especially regarding generative mechanisms?

3.      What should I simplify or remove to make this more effective as a lectio?

It is an open access book, and it is available at the following link: Beyond Skills – A Capability Conception of Vocational Education | Brill