Key questions for discussion include: What are the purposes and consequences of declaring someone a bad mother? How have the standards for being a bad mother changed over time? To what extent is the bad mother label a product of economic and racial privilege? What do stories of real and fictional bad mothers reveal about broader socio-cultural preoccupations? Are bad mothers ever justified in their behaviour, and can they be redeemed? Is there an obligation to act in relation to bad mothers?

Read more and submit your abstract here.

Every day we move through space that has been constructed or delineated somehow to be significant. We recognise and—consciously or unconsciously—react to this significance on a daily or hourly basis, and we draw from a cultural well of knowledge in order to do so.

The exciting and productive discussions at our previous meeting explored a number of key areas: shifting meanings of neighbourhoods through time | mobility between economic and political spaces | the effect of place on emotion and perception | procession and its manipulation of meaning in space | political control of space as a function of controlling protests | fiction and its creation of space | mapping and the deployment of power |
Building on the success of these and other conversations, and the entirety of last year’s conference, we aim to continue to examine the way space is bounded or expanded to create place.

Read more and submit your abstract here.

Humankind has long been fascinated with accounts of crimes and criminals. The public’s seemingly insatiable appetite for gore, misery and retribution is undiminished today. True crime regularly tops poll as one of the most popular literary genres and it often focuses on the worst of humanity: murderers, necrophiles, cannibals, and the like. Against this backdrop, our True Crime conference will explore the popularity of true crime, past and present, considering how these stories expose deeper societal issues and tensions. We will examine the links between real crimes and crime fiction, how one feeds into the other with sometimes horrifying consequences; and examine the moral landscape of true crime, including its potential to re-traumatise survivors, victims’ families and witnesses.

Read more and submit your abstract here.

Music is commonly regarded as a universal language, and yet it is also through music that the fiercest of nationalistic sentiments and inspirations for protest and rebellion have been expressed. But why does music have the capacity to direct the human imagination in this way? What does a nation sound like—or, to put it another way, why does a particular musical piece conjure up feelings of belonging to a particular nation? What aspects of the nation and its people are highlighted and what aspects are ignored by nationalistic music? How does nationalism influence the reception of music? Does being part of a particular national background shape an individual’s sense of music? How is music used against nationalistic impulses, and for protests generally? The Music and Nationalism event provides a platform for exploring these questions through inter-disciplinary dialogue and interactive engagement.

Read more and submit your abstract here.