CRESC Annual Conference – Culture and Citizenship, 3-5 September, 2008 St Hugh’s College, Oxford
Citizenship and Culture represent two of the most central concepts in contemporary social thought and, over the last decade, the relationships between them have been highly contested. Debates on citizenship have shifted from a focus on democracy, political rights and responsibilities and questions of belonging to a concern with culture, both formally and informally inscribed. The focus of citizenship historically tended more toward universalistic issues, with the realm of culture assigned to the particular, and to questions of difference and meaning. The interconnections between these approaches have become of growing academic interest on the one hand, as well as being of crucial significance in the political realm on the other. Thus claims for citizenship rights are increasingly required to consider the more culturally defined questions of identity, gender, sexuality, race, that are typically the concern of the new social and political movements. At the same time the issues of emancipation, responsibility and freedom remain key questions for debates concerning citizenship and culture.
This conference seeks to explore the inter-relationships between citizenship and culture and their contemporary social, cultural and political significance in a number of different contexts. The themes proposed for the conference are as follows:
*Cultural Diversity/After Multiculturalism
*Cities and Citizenship
*The Politics of Citizenship
*Liberal government and the citizen: histories and trajectories
*Arts and cultural policies and citizenship
*Cultures of collecting and citizenship
*Science, technology and citizenship
*Europe and the citizen
*The relationships between religious and secular conceptions of citizenship
*Culture, citizenship and transnationalism
*The media and citizenship
*Post-colonialism and Citizenship
*Sexual Citizenship
Keynote speakers to date include: Mieke Bal (University of Amsterdam), Engin Isin (Open University), Nina Glick Schiller (University of Manchester,Ghassan Hage (University of Melbourne), Mary Poovey (New York University), Nick Stevenson (University of Nottingham) Please submit either (a) 300 word abstracts for individual papers, or (b) proposals for panels including 3 papers by the end of February 2008. Proposal Forms are available online and should be sent to:
CRESC Conference Administration, 178 Waterloo Place, Oxford Road,University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, Tel: +44(0)161 2758985 /Fax: +44(0)161 275 8985/ cresc[at]manchester.ac.uk/
Conference organising committee: Tony Bennett (Open University), Francis Dodsworth (Open University), Patrick Joyce (University of Manchester), Helen Rees Leahy (University of Manchester), Sophie Watson (Open University)