Music &….Society

Decency is still important in our modern times, both in public life and in the private sphere. Yet as we push into the 21st Century, ‘decency’ increasingly appears to be coming under pressure across numerous fronts and on many diverse levels.

In one sense, decent housing, decent food, decent healthcare, decent education and a decent job are all considered necessary for people to flourish. Yet the concept is sometimes abused when deployed by powerful groups—political, social or religious—to denounce others for indecency. ‘Decent, hardworking, law-abiding citizens’ are set in stark opposition to ‘the others’ – the feckless, the lawless, the merely different or the ‘morally corrupt.’ In these cases, decency is more like an ethical force, the lack of which is deemed dangerous. And the image of decency can be used as a cover, for example, when persons who are outwardly decent and respectable use their wholesome images to hide despicable conduct.

So what is decency? How do we know it when we see it? How do we learn it? And how should it be understood, used and applied?

For further details and information click here to visit the conference web page.

Food and Drink have always been far more than simply sustenance and succor. Forming a fascinating, complex and diverse foundation for communities across the world, the needs, rituals and practices related to food and drink open up important insights and perspectives on who we are, how we live and the ways in which we have and continue to come together.

The second meeting of this inclusive interdisciplinary project seeks to explore how food is perceived, constructed, celebrated and resisted as cultural heritage at personal, regional, national and global levels with a view to forming a publication to engender further collaboration and discussion.

For further details and information click here to visit the project web page.

Humour seems to be an essential feature of human life. It is not just about jokes but a way of looking at the world. Individually, it is beneficial to health, relieving negative energy and invigorating the mind and the body. Socially, it is an indicator of frankness and sociability. Economically, it generates communication, improves teamwork and increases efficiency. Politically, it is an important form of protest and disobedience. Historically, it has proven to be a powerful weapon in times of crisis. And it can be wielded negatively, as a weapon or entrée into dark social arenas such as racism or hatred.

Possibly the most popular form of humour is comedy. In the 21^st century the entertainment industry has expanded significantly in what some see as the pre-planned ‘professionalisation’ of humour. Television shows explore situation comedy, stand up comedians attract huge numbers to live shows. Humour is carefully channelled, calculated, designed to evoke or provoke laughter and in the process reveals important differences between the two. The ability to provoke laughter, provide amusement or find humour in situations is common across cultures and societies, even though humour works in different ways and on different levels: age, education, gender, ethnicity, space and place all play a part in the things people find funny.

For further details and information click here to visit the conference web page.

As an umbrella term for an expression of sexuality, kink and its associated expressions may evoke a variety of feelings. From curiosity, excitement, and enthusiasm to shame, disgust, and judgment, there is no shortage of opinions. Often those outside the kink community, or the ‘scene’, make assumptions about the activities and the people within it, based in part on religious or cultural norms, their own (mis)understandings, or books or films they may have seen.

In psychological terms, kink is just another expression of human sexuality; kink can encompass a myriad of activities and attitudes just as any form of sexuality can; it is part of the continuum, and the lines between conventional and kinky sex are far from easy to discern. As well, varying levels of kink exist, in all walks of life, and just as with every other sexual identity there are limits and likes and dislikes, levels of acceptance, and beliefs about it within the community itself.

In part due to recent novels and films, there is a growing acceptance – at least in the so-called Western world – of the kink lifestyle, but it’s important to remember that kink has been around for as long (most likely) as sex has. It has been written about for centuries (de Sade springs to mind), and it has been alluded to in film and photography as long as those arts have existed. For recent examples of course we have the 50 Shades phenomenon, but kink is showing up on Netflix in historical dramas (Babylon Berlin) and in Young Adult mainstream programming (Riverdale) as well as being available for visual consumption all over the internet.

For further details and information click here to visit the conference web page.

Evil – the things we do as well as the things that happen to us – continues to be a stubborn and destructive presence in our lives. Despite often repeated slogans of ‘never again’ and ‘lessons will be learned’, and in the face of all of the monuments, memorials, speeches and books designed to keep the ills of the past ever in our thoughts, the sheer savagery of the evils we are individually and collectively capable of performing is writ seemingly larger every day.

Evil continues to leave enduring scars on life in the 21st century, despite knowledge of the Holocaust, the Rwandan and Armenian genocides, the events of Darfur and more. Contrary to what might be expected, these events have not served as sufficient warnings to save the global community from enduring new humanitarian catastrophes. Geopolitical power struggles resulting in poverty, violence and devastation for affected communities continue to leave a legacy of suffering in many parts of the world. The economies of the world embrace deregulation, protectionism and austerity, bringing financial crises which devastate individuals, families, communities and states. And despite advances in understanding psycho-social influences and reasons behind crime, we have not been able to prevent horrific acts of killing and violence in our communities.

People increasingly feel we have entered a time of ‘big’ evil – actions and events which play out on national, international and global stages, using the tools and machinery of the state and supported by the deliberate and cynical manipulation of all forms of media. The re-emergence of slavery, the continued growth of trafficking, the apparent invulnerability of corporations and the unaccountability of political actors create a rising sense among us all of injustice, powerlessness, indifference, irrelevance, hopelessness, resignation and despair.

Our second meeting of this inclusive interdisciplinary conference will explore four main areas with a view to forming a publication to engender further collaboration and discussion.

For further details and information click here to visit the conference web page.

Music is the soundtrack to our lives. Listening to and creating music has strong intuitive resonances with our sense of well-being and our mental health and has a direct impact on our moods, motivations and creativity. On a typical day, music might awaken us, entertain us on the morning commute, assist us in focusing on tasks and absorbing information, energise us for a gym session, cheer us up, remind us of things past, inspire us to create something, stimulate desire, relax us after a long day and, ultimately, lull us to sleep. For many of us, music is so engrained into our existence that we fail to acknowledge the tremendous impact music has on our thoughts and feelings.

Indeed, music can be associated with healing and catharsis and can be a valuable tool in a therapeutic context. while music is a powerful mechanism for coping with loss, grief, pain, lonelieness and other adversity, it is also a catalyst for euphoric sensations that result in intense pleasure and forge connections with others. Music can be correlated to enhanced cognitive performance and be used to support those with specific mental health conditions, including but not exclusive to dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, various forms of depression, but its use can also arguably lead to harms where music plays a role in supporting negative emotion.

While the health benefits of music have been broadly recognised across various disciplines, professions and practices, this event offers an opportunity for a fully inclusive interdisciplinary exploration of music’s impact on the mental health of listeners, and the impact of mental health on the creation and performance of music.

For further details and information click here to visit the conference web page

On a daily basis, alarmist news headlines trumpet details of impending doom and unfolding disasters. There are near-constant warnings about high-profile threats such as climate change, international terrorism, the rise of the far right, weapons of mass destruction, financial crisis, pandemics, hospital acquired infections, human trafficking and child sexual exploitation. The more banal aspects of existence also appear fraught with danger: sun exposure, breastfeeding, fitness, screen time… the list goes on. Everything from the air we breathe (diesel particulates) to the foods we eat (carcinogenic, genetically modified) may be viewed with suspicion. But what purpose does this culture of fear actually serve?

As we venture further into the 21st Century, a sense of fear and feelings of anxiousness seem to betray a widespread public sense of moral uncertainty, powerlessness, helplessness, hopelessness and resignation. In particularly challenging times, a well-rehearsed, quickly recognisable  and loudly proclaimed ‘narrative of fear’ can offer a paradoxically reassuring means of understanding and responding to threat, whether real or imagined. The culture of fear does not arise independently; it is born of multiple social, cultural, religious and historical influences and those same influences determine how individuals respond to fear and anxiety.

For further details and information click here to visit the conference web page

Every day we live and we move through spaces that have been created to be significant. We recognize, resonate and—consciously or unconsciously—react to this significance in a variety of different ways and on a number of differing levels.

While we may not be aware of this process, our lives are lived in constant interaction with these meanings and we do so by drawing from a ‘cultural well’ of knowledge and experience. It is therefore important to examine how we shape the spaces around us and explore what the meanings are that we attach to inside and outside, here and there, mine and yours, and even function and form. Understanding that these meanings are time- and culturally-based is just the beginning; it opens the door to broader sets of questions, allowing not only for an examination of how they are understood today, but how they were perceived and deployed in the past—and how they might be in the future.

Our spaces and places confine us, expand us and ultimately define us. They shape our moods and behavior; take for example our silence in a church, our movement in a particular direction through a museum, or our knowledge of where a bathroom might be in an office building. They inhibit or encourage our feelings and actions through the presence of cameras, the laws of society, the unstated rules of propriety, standards of dress or the expectations of those around us. The lines on a two-dimensional map can determine our movement through a city or our path across a mountain range; technology creates the possibility of movement by use of a sat nav or the 3D rendering of buildings not yet constructed. What can we make of the places we discover in archaeological quests or anthropological pursuits? How do we design the places and the spaces of the future?

The starting point for this inaugural inclusive interdisciplinary meeting takes as its point of departure the basic questions: how do we designate place and how do we delineate space?

For further details and information click here to visit the conference web page

Spirituality and culture are closely linked. How we treat other people, what and when we eat and drink, how we interact with – and transcend – the everyday world are all affected by our spiritual orientation. Our spiritual commitments may prompt us to seek social change, travel to sacred places, and follow certain rituals to put us in touch with something beyond humdrum living. We might signal our identification with a particular spiritual group by our outward appearance, and hope that our conduct will improve the culture around us in some small way.  In turn, the wider culture affects  our spiritual life, so that it’s sometimes hard to know which aspects of our daily living are based on local customs and which are spiritual in origin.

Spirituality recognises that there is more to reality than just the material world. The intuition that our lives have meaning and are part of something bigger is a powerful motivator for us to cultivate our spiritual side.  The mystical experiences and beliefs that arise from this engagement can stimulate our creative urges. Feelings of transcendence and awe have inspired artists, writers and composers throughout the ages, and continue to influence cultures around the world. Spirituality has not gone away in a hyper-connected age, but finds new modes of expression and practice.

Spirituality And … Culture is part of an exciting new series of inclusive interdisciplinary projects that focus on the significance of spirituality to human living, thinking and feeling in today’s world. This event will explore the interactions between spirituality, culture and social phenomena with a view to forming a publication to engender further collaboration and discussion.

For further details and information click here to visit the conference web page.

Join us for a fast-paced, interdisciplinary fuelled two days of learning, sharing and connection as we engage with one another, across disciplines, practices and professions to transform the end of life into a person-centred experience.

This inclusive interdisciplinary conference explores dying and death and the ways culture impacts care for the dying, the overall experience of dying, and how the dead are remembered. Culture not only presents and portrays ideas about “a good death” and norms that seek to achieve it, culture also operates as both a vehicle and medium through which meaning about death is communicated and understood. Sadly, too, culture sometimes facilitates death through violence.

Given the location of this year’s conference, a central theme in our proceedings (augmenting those listed below) will involve tracing on-going and profound shifts in contemporary attitudes toward death. Hospices or almshouses (in Dutch: Godshuizen) are charitable housing that were usually built for needy or elderly people. The initiative often came from crafts organisations or rich individuals ordered their establishment. In Bruges these houses already start to appear in the 14th century. Generally they consist of groups of small, soberly furnished houses that are gathered around an inner courtyard. The houses are usually not more than one story high. Luckily some 40 of those complexes still survive in Bruges today.  Most of them still serve a social purpose (as housing for elderly, poor, disabled people,…). Our conference explores these connections, and those between contemporary technologies, social media hubs, and current health care delivery systems that impact current end-of-life issues and decisions, including the experience of bereavement and grief, and particularly how patients, staff, and survivors intersect amidst newly emerging care settings.

For further details and information click here to visit the conference web page.

Travel, the daily movements of people (and animals), our mobility and ability to traverse spaces and places is the cornerstone of life in the 21st Century. We take it for granted, we presume it to be a feature of daily life and assume it to be a right which belongs to all of us. But whilst ‘travel’ appears to be initially straightforward, even a cursory glance quickly reveals an intricate, nuanced and multi-layered phenomenon which, even now, we struggle to fully understand or appreciate.

What exactly does it mean to travel? Who travels where and why? Undoubtedly tourism plays a major role: brands, rituals, routes, locations and attractions along with their links to culture, race, gender, identity, age and occupation. In this respect travel is connected to privilege, to heritage, to technology, business, economics and the environment. What ties does travel have to industry or education or health? But travel can also be involuntary; forced by acts of war, displaced through genocide, repatriated or removed by political dictators and governmental decree.

This inclusive interdisciplinary conference aims to map the broad boundaries of what is involved when we begin to grapple with travel and explore all the various interfaces which are created when people move, for whatever reasons, from place to place. We will be creating spaces where personal experiences and storytelling are available alongside perspectives from industry and travel professionals, insights from policy makers, viewpoints from indigenous cultures and local contexts, the activities of bloggers and vloggers and many, many more.

We will explore travel as a cultural phenomenon, identify areas, issues and problems where reform is needed and consider potential pathways to the future with a view to forming a publication to engender further research, practice, collaboration and discussions.

For further details and information click here to visit the conference web page.

From ancient gladiators battling to the death in front of cheering crowds to the modern-day journalistic maxim that ‘if it bleeds, it leads’, violence has occupied a prominent place in the human imagination. It is common to see animals in the wild fighting to establish dominance and eliminate potential predators. But when humans engage in similar behaviour, it raises a host of questions about the nature and implications of violence. Why has our capacity for reason, compassion and empathy been insufficient to circumvent our primal urge to use physical force to cause injury, death or other forms of harm? Why has violence exerted an irresistible hold on the human psyche throughout history? How have cultural practices and language shaped our understanding of violence in terms of either enabling or discouraging violent behaviour? What, if any, circumstances make violence acceptable? What factors cause people to be violent? What can be done by individuals and communities to prevent violence?

For further details and information, please see the conference web page by clicking here.

We live in an era where stories about bodies – in/visible bodies, glamorous bodies, engineered bodies, trafficked bodies, dismembered bodies, persecuted bodies – are omnipresent. While bodies are literally made of flesh and blood, our understanding of bodies is constructed through fictional and non-fictional stories that shape perceptions of what constitutes the body, how a body should look, how a body should behave, how a body should experience the world and how bodies should interact with each other. By creating these types of norms, stories also shape perceptions of what constitutes deviant, non-normative and otherwise undesirable bodies. Telling stories about the body is therefore an act loaded with ideological, political, sociological, theological, ontological and aesthetic implications.

At the same time, notions of the body have also had a significant impact on the stories cultures have created and passed down through generations. Suffering bodies are central to the foundational narratives of various religious, cultural and political traditions. Genres have emerged with stories about monstrous bodies, sexual and erotic bodies, bodies at war, modified bodies, bodies coming of age and ageing, bodies being tested by nature, bodies enhanced by (bio)technology, politicised bodies and so forth.

At a time when the socio-political landscape is dominated by the construction of barriers among the population based on race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation and class, it is more important than ever to consider how stories about bodies and perceptions of bodies shaped by stories not only foster division and difference, but also inspire cohesion and belonging.

For further details and information click here to visit the conference web page.

Music is integral to our lives. It gives voice to the feelings and thoughts that cannot be spoken. It can motivate or calm. It has been used on battlefields as well as battles for the hear. It can heal and comfort as well as engender anger and hatred. It has been blamed for mass shootings as well as credited for bringing huge crowds together. It can reinforce cultural mores or break the rules. It fosters connections with the sacred and the profane. It is all around us.

Music speaks volumes where words fail us and can be a conduit for communication between individuals, groups, entire countries, and through time. Musicians, songs and styles of music transcend national boundaries and speak across the generations. Precisely because the meanings and implications of music are not limited to specific professions this project invites inclusive interdisciplinary approaches to making sense of the way music impacts our lives.

Further details and information can be found by clicking here.