1st - 2nd June 2001

University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

Censorship and social outrage are linked to concepts of identity, discourses of knowledge, and the way power is distributed in societies. When these are threatened or rearranged, tension is generated as different groups attempt to interpret them; new discourses are generated, gaps in old understandings exposed, or conflicting interpretations assumed to hold the key to the same occurence.

These moments of tension are often generated around, but not limited to, issues of crime, religion, race, sex, gender, sexuality, childhood, the body. These are topics critical theory has moved to explore over the last decades; these events thus challenge those in academia to engage with them. To study both events/texts and responses is to better understand the interplay of text/event, identity, audience.

We hope at this conference to examine:

- Public events, hysterias, crazes and controversies which public commentators are challenged to describe or categorise

- Texts which threaten the audience, the status quo, or their own internal coherence

The conference is interdisciplinary; we understand "text" as used above to be anything available for interpretation: events, public debates, productions of art, literature, the media.

For geenral enquires, please contact [email protected]

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Marcus Wood, University of Sussex