THE SECOND SOAS SHIT CONFERENCE

THIS IS THE PROGRAMME FOR THIS WEEK’S CONFERENCE.

THE TIMINGS ARE APPROXIMATE.

EACH SPEAKER HAS 20 mins PLUS 10 mins DISCUSSION.

LUNCH WILL BE

MORE OR LESS 1.00 TO 2.00PM.

PLEASE NOTE: Room 403 is in the main Senate House building, next to the library on the 4^th Floor.

It is not in the SOAS part of the building.

It is possible that we shall go for a small meal on Tuesday evening.

IF YOU WANT THE GENERAL OUTLINE OF THE CONFERENCE, YOU WILL FIND IT WITH THIS LINK

DATE: Tuesday 18 – Wednesday 19 November 2025

VENUE: Room 403, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

ADMISSION: Free, and open to the general public

REGISTRATION: By sending e-mail to [email protected]

WEBSITE: www.geocities.ws/shitology2025

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DAY BY DAY PROGRAMME

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TUESDAY 18 NOVEMBER – 10.00am

0. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

1. Bad investments and the enshittification of Britain

Matt Schneider [University of California, Los Angeles]

2. Sketching the genealogy of contemporary dry toilets

Marine Legrand [Research fellow, LEESU (ENPC, France)]

3. From infrastructure to inclusion: gendered and intersectional insights for sustainable sanitation

Pascale Hofmann [University College, London]

4. Beyond the sewer: the stable assumptions yet unstable future of the freshwater-flush toilet

Sarah Nahar and Nick Kawa [The Ohio State University]

[Lunch break]

5. The significance of excrements in Early Modern vernacular print culture

Veronika Lahodinski [University of York]

6. Blood and shit: what public toilets tell us about periods

Lauren Powdrell [SOAS, London]

7. Caught short on the stressful streets: the lack of public toilets in Kilburn, north London

John Miles [Kilburn Older Voices Exchange (KOVE)] 

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WEDNESDAY 19 NOVEMBER – 10.00am

1. A proposition for faecal typologies in archaeology

Eleanor Green [University of York]

2. Stoma: Reviewing the literature

David Kent [Independent researcher]

3. An ethnography of toilet practices at SOAS, University of London

Ed Emery [SOAS, London]

4. “Our condition is most close to the joyous redemptions of shit” – Scatopolitical fragments

Cy Lecerf Maulpoix [EHESS/CEMS, Paris]

[Lunch break]

5. Poo constellations: systematic therapy for human excreta management

Marieke Meesters [University of Sheffield and Twente University, Netherlands]

6. To pee or not to pee: youth navigation of shared sanitation in Mumbai’s informal settlements

Hoang Tran [Independent researcher]

Riddhi Khandhar [Independent researcher]

7. Moving bowels and the moving image: faeces on film in the age of mechanical reproduction

Benjin Pollock [Independent researcher]

8. The campaign to save the public toilet in Ashburton, Devon

Sarah Prince [Independent researcher]

8. General discussion regarding “The Shit Manifesto”

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