CfP: Punk and Temporality (15th& 16th December 2023, High Wycombe, UK)

Punk Scholars Network 10th Annual Conference & Postgraduate Symposium
15th & 16th December 2023 Buckinghamshire New University, High Wycombe, United Kingdom

Deadline: 26 September 2023

At this year’s Punk Scholars Network conference and postgraduate symposium, the primary theme will be ‘punk and temporality.’ Temporality is concerned less with the objective measurable notion of time, and instead places more emphasis on how we experience history and events physically and socially. In Temporalities (2012), Russell West-Pavlov provides this reflection on temporality:

“Time is self-evident, it needs no explanation. Its passing is indexed all around us […] yet [it is] deeply problematic for us. The nature of the past is incessantly debated. Death and ageing are taboo topics in our youth-obsessed society. The future is represented for us in a plethora of consumer images, of things we can have or ways we can be as soon as we buy this or that product. But simultaneously it is a source of anxiety.”

Now in its sixth decade, there is—and largely always has been—a lot of room for reflections within punk communities regarding the various ways we can situate punk in relation to time. Much of punk discourse is somewhat meta, insofar that we often spend our time contemplating punk’s beginnings and perceived endings, its health, punk ontologies, and so on. A non-restrictive list of examples of themes for this year’s symposium include punk and:

  • Archiving

  • Death

  • Existentialism

  • Geography/space

  • Historicisation

  • History

  • Myth

  • ‘No future’

  • Revisionism

  • Scenes (local/national)

  • Spaces

  • The future

  • Youth/age

We seek to explore these and associated themes, and welcome submissions from academics from across the spectrum of disciplines, non-academics, and practitioners at all stages. Additionally, we welcome submissions in areas distinct from the above, with the caveat that the core theme should be punk, and priority will be given to abstracts that align more closely with the theme of temporality.

The deadline for abstracts (of no more than 250 words) is Monday 26 September 2023. In addition, please let us know your full name and contact email address, and (where appropriate) your institutional affiliation. Please send all abstracts as well as any questions to paul.fields[at]bnu.ac[dot]uk.

The 2023 conference and symposium is taking place at Buckinghamshire New University in High Wycombe, UK, which is approximately a 30-minute train journey from Central London. There is no conference fee, however we welcome donations from those in a position comfortably to do so.

CFP, International Conference, NewsHelene Heuser