Violence and Popular Culture Symposium
Violent depictions: Representing Violence in Popular Culture is an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural symposium on the representation of violence in contemporary popular culture.
The subject of violence is one of the most compelling issues in our contemporary world. On a daily basis we are exposed to a seemingly never-ending stream of violent images, which depict both physical and psychological violence. Although we may be revolted or outraged by violent imagery, representations of violence in popular culture, the mass media and the plastic and performing arts continue to fascinate audiences and reward producers.
The Violence in Representation symposium will examine aspects of the cultural, social, political and personal representation of violence in popular culture with the intentions of interrogating who represents whom, for what purposes, and in what contexts.
There are a number of thematic categories such as violence in films, literary texts, news broadcasts, the family and urban spaces, among others, which cut across class, gender, sexuality, and locality. We welcome papers on any of these themes, in particular that focus on violence and popular culture from non-Anglo contexts.
Papers already accepted include women and terrorism in Spain , family feuds in Brazilian cinema, the space of violence in Marseille, rape in Italian women's fiction, and media representation of violence in Bali .
Following the conference, the organisers intend to publish selected full-length papers in a special number of the Transcultures , a fully-referred international journal.
Register for the symposium (Adobe Acrobat format)
This symposium is organised by the "Violence and Popular Culture" research group in the School of Languages, Cultures, and Linguistics. Members include Philip Anderson, Brett Hough, Stewart King, Sarah McDonald and Susanna Scarparo.