Spaces of Alterity
In April 2011 I co-organised "Spaces of Alterity: Conceptualising Counter-Hegemonic Sites, Practices and Narratives" at the University of Nottingham with Dr Michael Eades and Dr Adity Singh. The conference received an overwhelming response from academics, educators, artists and activists and ran for two days with keynotes delivered by Dr Alberto Toscano (Goldsmiths) and critically-acclaimed, award-winning novelist China Miéville. The conference was run in conjunction with two partner events: "Alternative Realities and Spatial Explorations" organised by the not-for-profit arts organisation Annexinema and Educational Spaces of Alterity organised by the Nottingham Critical Pedagogy Group.
Spaces of Alterity: Conceptualising Counter-Hegemonic Sites, Practices and Narratives
27-28th April 2011, University of Nottingham
Trent Building, University Park Campus
Programme: Wednesday 27th April
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09:00 – 09:30
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Registration/Tea: Senate Chamber, Trent Building (Lower Ground Floor)
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09:30 – 09:35
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Senate Chamber: Welcome by Dr Neal Curtis, Head of Centre for Critical Theory
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09:35 – 10:35
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Senate Chamber: Keynote Address: Dr. Alberto Toscano:
‘The Logistics of Capital and the Spaces of Communism’
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10:35 – 10:50
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Tea Break
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10:50 – 12:20
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Panel 1, Room LG13: Subversive Spaces in the City (Chair: Adity Singh)
Alessandro Zagato (National University of Ireland, Maynooth): Political Subjectivity and State Cooption in Community Development Organisations in Dublin
Asefeh Esfahlani (Goldsmiths): How Has Resistance Become Possible in Vali-Asr-St.?
Dr. Tara Puri and Benoit Dillet (University of Kent): The Cinema of the Dardenne Brothers
Panel 2, Room LG14: Aesthetics of Cultural Practice (Chair: Dr Matthew Mead)
Dr. Petra Eckhard (University of Graz, Austria): On Counter-Hegemonic Cultural Practice: Franz Gsellmann’s Weltmaschine
Dr. Robert Knifton (University of Liverpool): Creating Museum Spaces of Alterity Through Karaoke
Suzy K. Freake (University of Nottingham): The Video Installations of Jane and Louise Wilson
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12:20 – 13:20
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Lunch
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13:20 – 14:50
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Panel 1, LG13: Israel/ Palestine (Chair: Asefeh Esfahlani)
Dr. Lucinda J. Thompson (Independent Researcher): Counter-Productions of Space in Jerusalem Tent Protests
Ronnen Ben-Arie (University of Haifa, Israel): Bedouin Alterity: Between Resistance and Creation
Teodora Todorova (University of Nottingham): Zochrot (Remembering) and the Palestinian Right of Return
Panel 2, LG14: Memory and Spectrality (Chair: Dr David Ashford)
Piotr Juskowiak (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan): Subversive Spaces in Biopolis: Biopolitical Resistance in post-Communist Poland
Hadas Elber (Tel Aviv University, Israel): “The Sublime Void”: Contemporary Haunted Houses as Spaces of Narrative Alterity
Samantha Walton (University of Edinburgh): Abandoned Buildings, Ghosts and Un-space in Sean Bonney's London Poetry
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14:50 – 16:20
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Panel 1, LG13: Videogame Narratives (Chair: Dr Iain Robert Smith)
Dr. Souvik Mukherjee (De Montfort University): Videogame Wastelands as Dystopias of Possibility
Dr. Matthew Mead (University of the Arts, London): “You Won’t Find Anyone in There”: Modalities of Nostalgia in Jonathan Blow’s Braid
Shawn Edrei (Tel Aviv University): Worlds Without End: Spatial Configurations in Virtual Narratives
Panel 2, LG14: Alterity and the Everyday (Chair: Michael Eades)
Dr. David Ashford (University of Surrey): ‘Architecture or Revolution’- The Politics of a Motorway Service Station
Jessica Elaine Reilly (University of Western Ontario, Canada): The Crisis of the Polis, the Critique of the City: Urbanism, Utopianism, and the Revolution of Everyday Life
David Bell (University of Nottingham): Collaborative Utopia
Panel 3, LG9: Collective Spaces of Resistance (Chair: Teodora Todorova)
Emanuele Leonardi (University of Western Ontario, Canada): Profanatory Utopias: The Case of the NO TAV Movement in Susa Valley
Dr. Fabienne Collignon (University of Edinburgh): The Antarctic Treaty and the Cold War
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16:20 – 16:45
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Tea Break
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16:45 – 17:45
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Roundtable Discussion, Senate Chamber: ‘Conceptualising Counter-Hegemonic Space’ (Chair: Dr Colin Wright)
Emeritus Prof. Peter Brooker (University of Nottingham)
Dr. Sara Motta (University of Nottingham)
Dr. Alberto Toscano (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Dr. Alex Vasudevan (University of Nottingham)
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17:45 – 18:45
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Wine Reception, Senate Chamber
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19:00 – 22:00
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Conference Dinner, Aqua Restaurant, University Park Campus
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Programme: Thursday 28th April
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9:00 – 9:15
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Tea/Registration: Lecture Theatre LG19
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9:15 – 10:45
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Panel 1, Room LG13: Performance as Alterity (Chair: Kathryn Telling)
Arabella Stanger (Goldsmiths, University of London): The Appropriation of Counter-Hegemonic Space in Nazi Gemeinschaftstanz
Corey Gibson (University of Edinburgh): The Voice of the People?: The Modern Scottish Folk-song Revival as a Site of Political Potential
Panel 2, Room LG14: Networking Dissent in New Media (Chair: Eva Giraud)
Dr. Iain Robert Smith (University of Roehampton): Bootleg Archives: Alternative Channels of Film Distribution in the Internet Age
Dr. Seb Franklin (Anglia Ruskin University): Clouds of Control, Fog of Alterity: Towards a Critique of Networked Mediation
Charles Ledbetter (Stanford University): “Big Society” Tweet-Ins: The Privatisation of Public Protest
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10:45 – 11:00
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Tea Break
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11:00 – 12:30
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Panel 1, LG13: Resistance in Transnational Cinemas (Chair: Dr Iain Robert Smith)
Ceren Mert (Istanbul Bilgi University): Forming Creative Spaces Through Films: Fatih Akin and the Possible Representations of the Lived Spaces of Immigrants
Nuno Barradas Jorge (University of Nottingham): Re-writing the map: global ‘slow cinema’ and everyday life places
Lisa Socrates (UCL): Heterotopias in Adonis Florides’s Kalabush
Panel 2, LG14: Creative Appropriations of Public Space (Chair: Stephanie Petschick)
Kanchuka Dharmasiri (University of Massachusetts Amherst): ‘You Saw, I Saw’: An Analysis of The Wayside and Open Theatre’s Performances in Public Spaces
Louise Fabian (University of Aarhus, Denmark): The Robin Hood of Signifiers?: Critical and Creative Appropriations of Public Space
Samantha Edwards-Vandenhoek (University of Western Sydney): The Graffiti Within: Visual Poetics of Intervention in Sydney's Inner Suburbs
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12:30 – 13:30
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Lunch
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13:30 – 15:00
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Panel 1: Subverting Literary Genres, LG13 (Chair: Dr Caroline Edwards)
Dr. Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak (Wroclaw University, Poland): Representations of Counter-Hegemonic Agency in Radical Fantasy for Children and Young Adults
Daniel Baker (Deakin University, Australia): Fantasy, Science Fiction and Space for Utopia
Sebastian Huber (Ludwig Maximilians University, Germany): Spatial Metafiction and Contemporary American Literature
Panel 2, LG14: Urban Interventions and Narratives (Chair: David Bell)
Shauna Janssen (Concordia University, Montreal): Le Dalhousie, Griffintown: Dimensions of an Other Space
Rhiannon Firth (University of Nottingham): Transgressive Citizenship: Beyond Utopia Urbanism
Simone Shu-Yeng Chung (University of Cambridge): Cityscapes of Crime in Gomorrah’s Naples
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15:00 – 16:30
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Panel 1: Strategies of Protest, Lecture Theatre LG19 (Chair: Dr Sara Motta)
Dr. Anna Feigenbaum, Dr. Fabian Frenzel and Dr. Patrick McCurdy (Richmond University, London): The Protest Camp as a Place-Based Site of Resistance and Collective Learning
Soo Tian Lee (Birkbeck, University of London): At the Limits of the Knowledge Factory: The Creation of Intellectual Space in University Occupations
Teale Phelps Bondaroff (University of Cambridge): Examining the Strategy of Environmentally Motivated Direct Action Blockades
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16:30 – 17:00
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Tea Break
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17:00 – 18:00
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Keynote Address, Lecture Theatre LG19: China Mieville:
‘Alterity & Elision: Confessions of an English Opium Eater’
(Introduced by Caroline Edwards)
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20:30 – 23:00
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Conference Closing Event, One Thoresby Street: Annexinema
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Dr Caroline Edwards is Senior Lecturer in Modern & Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. Her research and teaching specialisms are in 21st century literature and critical theory, science fiction and post-apocalyptic narratives, Marxist aesthetics, and utopianism.
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