Fwd: CFP performing prejudice

[Alon Lischinsky]

(with apologies for cross-posting)

Call for papers on Performing Prejudice

We would like to invite scholars to a symposium on performing
prejudice at Newcastle University on the 22nd July 2013. We are
interested in submission of short papers, position papers and/or
roundtable discussions to enable the exchange of ideas.

The aim of this symposium is to exchange ideas and develop a nuanced
understanding of performances of prejudice and how these manifest
themselves in community encounters with the legal, cultural and policy
environments. We would like to hear from those interested in the
performance in songs, music, recordings, community narratives,
cultural texts (broadly defined), where they construct conflict
between ethnic, religious or racial groups, particularly in the social
life of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. A key focus of this
symposium will be the exchange of ideas focused around the question of
conflictual agency in the performance of prejudice. We are interested
in hearing from scholars from any area of the arts, humanities and
social sciences, but are particularly interested in those whose work
engages methods such as critical discourse analysis, performance
studies, media analysis, sociological and socio-legal approaches. We
envisage publishing an edited collection of essays based upon work to
emerge from the symposium.

Discourses of race, religion, ethnicity and multiculturalism are
currently under public scrutiny and we are interested both in the
performative othering of visible minorities (e.g. those classified by
themselves or others as Muslim-British) as well as less visible
minorities in these islands (white sectarianism, homophobia,
anti-semitism, discrimination on grounds of learning disabilities and
mental health, etc.). We are also interested in other groups such as
the obese, the elderly and alternative subcultures, and the extent to
which it is appropriate or not to conceive of these as rights-holding
groups with experiences of socio-structural prejudice. Another key
concern is the othering of women; one element is how this interacts
with and can be separated from trans- and other gender identity
discrimination. All these may be considered from an intersectional
perspective. Contributions about other groups not listed here are also
welcomed.

In encounters with the legal, cultural and policy environments, some
of the key issues remain focused around identifying the boundaries of
prejudicial agency, and we would like to discuss how the act of
performance (in addition to the textual meanings) can perform
prejudicial agency. Furthermore, we are interested in theorizations of
prejudicial performance that deal both with intentional prejudice that
recognises the other and identifies the self as the correct form of
identity, and blind prejudice that does not recognise the other(s) but
privileges the self-identity as ‘natural’ and thereby prejudicing the
other through a complete lack of recognition (i.e. both of Hall’s
recognition and identification concepts). The recognition of the other
(or lack thereof) is crucial to discourses and performance of
prejudice, both for the principal narrative voice and real, virtual or
imagined audiences.

The symposium will be held over one day at Newcastle University and
participants will be responsible for their own travel and any
accommodation etc. We are hoping for a genuinely open exchange of
ideas and therefore anticipate both short papers (10-20 minutes) as
well as panel discussions. To submit a proposal for participation
please submit a <250 word abstract by Monday the 3rd June 2013 to
either:

Dr Simon McKerrell (International Centre for Music Studies, Newcastle
University)
simon.mckerrell at ncl.ac.uk
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sacs/staff/profile/simon.mckerrell

or

Dr Kay Goodall (The Stirling Law School, University of Stirling)
k.e.goodall at stir.ac.uk
http://www.law.stir.ac.uk/kay.goodall.php
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