Music &….Society

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.

“Falling in love was not really a choice; it just struck me.”  Many people identify with the sentiment in Helen Fisher’s writing about love; the elusiveness, the enduring, the mystery, the unknown of such a powerful emotion and experience.  Artists, designers, writers, poets, singers, songwriters, musicians – we have all tried with various degrees of failure and success to describe and express the many forms of love.

What does it mean to love? What does it mean to be intimate?   What is the connection between romance, intimacy, and love?  Such broad questions, yet such diverse and personal answers.  This project endeavours to explore romance, intimacy, and love within the context of persons and interpersonal relationships and across a range of critical, contextual, and cultural perspectives. Seeking to encourage innovative dialogues, we warmly welcome papers which struggle to understand what it is to be a person, how romance, intimacy and love impacts our familial, individual, personal, romantic, and social relationships. There is an intention to form a selective publication emerging from the meeting to engender further collaboration and discussion.

For further details and information, please visit 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.

The idea of the child as innocent, as pure, the ‘little angel’ in need of protection from the harsh realities of life and the corrupting influences of the world around us has come to dominate our thinking, language, values, social policies and educational philosophies in the past few decades. Children are seen as ‘little people’, ‘blank slates’, works in progress who are loved, nurtured and guided as they grow to become mature, rational and responsible adults.

Yet we are also aware of the mischievous ‘little monsters’, the ‘little devils’ who run exasperated parents ragged. The toddlers who chase pigeons; kick cats; pull the wings off flies and the legs off spiders. Children of whom we become afraid; who abuse other children; who assault each other, strangers, parents, the elderly. Children who ‘roam’ and ‘own’ the streets, individually or ‘in packs’; who are put ‘into care’; who commit crimes; who smoke, drink, and take drugs. Feral children. Children who rape. Children who torture. Children who kill. Children who are ‘possessed’: demonic children, evil children who do evil things.

This research stream will juggle with three competing approaches to children and evil. The first concerns itself with how (certain) children have been presented as evil and considers the nature of evil children as a social and cultural construct. The second  concerns what is meant by ‘innocence’ – in all contexts – and then particularly the ‘innocence of a child’. The third approach considers the question of whether and, if so, in what ways children can be evil.  Are children wicked? Are children malicious? What does it mean to be personally, socially, legally and morally responsible? And, if responsibility exists, at what point does one assume responsibility for one’s acts? What is it about the special status of ‘childhood’ that somehow makes it different?

The inaugural launch of this inclusive interdisciplinary conference will begin to examine, explore and undermine issues surrounding the general idea of the child as innocent and explore all aspects of evil children and the relationship between children and evil with a view to forming a publication to engender further collaboration and discussion.

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

We have a curious and fascinating range of relationships with the Erotic. Perhaps this is fitting given its widespread presence in all aspects of daily life and the power it has to elicit all manner of emotional, aesthetic, rational and irrational responses.  In everything we do, from painting to sculpture to dance, from literature to letters to historical documents, from film and television to theatre and performance to photography and all forms of visual media, it is there. Across disciplines, professions, business, vocations and practices, the Erotic is alive and flourishing.

Wherever humans have lived, so has the Erotic, as evidenced in fragments of letters between long-separated lovers, in carved phalluses and voluptuous stone goddesses and in music that makes our hearts yearn for something we cannot name. It draws people together yet can sow discontent when it cannot be attained. It crosses racial, ethnic, social, socio-economic, political, educational and age-related boundaries. It causes intense joy and excruciating pain. And it motivates demonstrations of both love and madness, and everything in between.

Yet grappling with ‘the erotic’ is somehow more difficult than it would at first appear.

For further please visit the conference web page by clicking here

Freedom of speech – the right to speak out, to debate, to criticise, to disseminate information on matters of public importance – is one of the most basic of human rights. Article 19 of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights holds that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.” The constitutions and laws of countless countries protect the free-speech rights of individuals and journalists, reflecting the crucial role that the free dissemination of information, news and debate plays in democratic systems of government. Yet the right to speak out, to inform, to report and to openly debate is not absolute. Nor is it enjoyed by everyone, everywhere. This fundamental human right is under attack in many societies, and on many fronts.

Some governments pay lip service to guarantees of free expression; others actively censor or repress citizens, political opponents and the media; still others use punitive laws to control, punish and silence critics. The role of the news media as a check on official corruption and wrongdoing is under attack, as governments use threats, intimidation and even violence against journalists who expose and criticise. Misleading information and hate-driven commentary spread via social media platforms are manipulating public opinion, warping political debate and polluting the public sphere. Meanwhile, social stigma and excessive political correctness create intolerance, stifling debate and demonising some speakers. And although defamation laws and human rights codes regulate and penalise those who would use speech to harm and denigrate others, ethnic and racial groups continue to the targets of hostility and hate speech.

In western countries where speech is largely considered to be free, notions such as “post truth,” “alternative facts” or “fake news” are making headlines, making us wonder about the responsibilities that come with public speech and about where the line should be drawn an individual’s right to express themselves freely and society’s right not to be wilfully misinformed.

This inclusive interdisciplinary conference aims to explore all aspects of free speech at the beginning of the 21st century with a view to forming a selective and innovative publication to engender further research and collaboration.

For further details and information please visit the conference web page by clicking here

Few relationships are as significant as our friendships. The Buddha was once asked by his cousin, Ananda, “Is friendship part of the path?” The Buddha’s response, “No Ananda, friendship is the whole path,” suggesting the momentous power and meaning attributed to friendships. Certainly, close friendships can be as just as important to us as familial bonds. Conversely, the absence of friends can cause feelings of loneliness and isolation. Although the general psychological and biological benefits of friendship have been well documented, the actual experience of friendship is a deeply personal one. Not only do we each have our own views on what friendship means, we each have our own approach to choosing our friends.

Because of this element of subjectivity, friendship is a complex concept that deserves more extensive exploration of personal experiences and the ways in which it shapes, and is shaped by, social norms. The interplay between the way friendship is understood in a particular society and the way it is experienced by individuals raises a variety of questions: how do friendships form; what is the basis for the ‘attraction’ that underpins them; what purposes do they serve; why has friendship come to be regarded as a universal ‘good’; how do meanings of friendship change over time; what does it mean to be a “good friend”; what tangible things can be done to promote friendship as a social value; how might the conduct among friends be harnessed for the communal good more broadly; and more.

This first inclusive conference aims to explore these and other facets of friendship through an inter-disciplinary dialogue that transcends the boundaries of the intellectual, the emotional and the personal with a view to forming a selective and innovative publication to engender further research and collaboration.

For further details and information please visit the conference web page by clicking here

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to investigate and explore the enduring influence and imagery of monsters and the monstrous on human culture throughout history. In particular, the project will have a dual focus with the intention of examining specific ‘monsters’ as well as assessing the role, function and consequences of persons, actions or events identified as ‘monstrous’. The history and contemporary cultural influences of monsters and monstrous metaphors will also be examined with a view to forming a selective publication to engender further collaboration and discussion.

Click here to visit the conference web page for further details and information.

From government incentives for women to have more children and the ‘slut-shaming’ phenomenon, to the erasure of rights and legal recognition of LGBTIQ++ people, and beyond, we live in a time where political and social forces play a powerful role in regulating our sexuality and sexual behaviour. It is therefore necessary and timely to consider how sexuality is related to our agency as human beings, particularly in terms of how autonomy and self-determination shape and are shaped by sex and sexuality.

The concept of sexual agency is fraught with complication, both in terms of how it is understood and expressed. On one hand, sexual agency can be constructed in ways that enforce systemic inequities and violence against those whose sexual agency defies narrow cultural norms. On the other hand, sexual agency can be constructed in ways that result in progressive change to institutions, laws and social mores. Understanding the complexities of sexual agency requires further examination of how it is conceptualised and manifested within and across various communities, cultures, and contexts. Exploring sexual agency raises a host of questions, including how it is related to the concept of sexual autonomy, what it means to have, obtain, be denied, or lose sexual agency; how sexual agency is contextual; whose sexual agency is respected; and how queer, trans, and those with other marginalised sexual or gender identities navigate sexual agency.

These issues will be the focus of the Sexuality and Agency conference. This inclusive interdisciplinary event provides a space for participants from all relevant disciplines, professions and practices to share their work and learn from the perspectives being shared. The conference aims to build connections across professions and communities to discuss and explore research and activity relating to the relationship between sexuality and agency; to identify areas to be subsequently explored in further depth; and to generate collaborative action that will lead to change in the inequitable ways that sexual agency is constructed, enforced, and maintained.

Embracing the ethos “nothing about us without us,” this conference seeks to explore the relationship between sexuality and agency by promoting community organising, collaborative research, and innovative practices in NGOs and/or voluntary sector work. Too often scholarship within the fields of sexuality and gender studies remains seated in the academy and is inaccessible to the very populations whose lives are at the heart of that research. In contrast, this conference seeks to bring together community organisers and scholars in meaningful collaborations that are centred on restorative justice within marginalised sexuality and gender communities,  with a view to forming a selective publication to engender further collaboration, research and discussion.