Dear Crit Listers,

The State Violence Research Network is happy to announce its first interdisciplinary conference, titled 'From the State to the Streets: Representations of and Responses to State Violence in the Nuclear Age' to be held at the University of Manchester between April 10 - 12, 2019. Please share widely with your networks, and for more information, please visit http://stateviolenceresearchnetwork.co.uk/callforpapers

CALL FOR PAPERS

From the State to the Streets: Representations of and Responses to State Violence in the Nuclear Age – Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Interdisciplinary Conference Call for Papers

Keynote Speakers: Professor Charlotte Heath-Kelly (University of Warwick)
Dr Nisha Kapoor (University of York)
Opening Night Activist Panel speakers TBC

April 10 – 12, 2019
University of Manchester
#fromthestatetothestreets

The State’s behaviour is violence, and it calls its violence “law”; that of the individual, “crime”. - Max Stirner, The Ego and its Own (1844)

The spectre, and the reality, of state violence is all around us, and around some more than others (Black Lives Matter, the Gaza blockade and the West Bank wall, austerity and its effects on the welfare state). However, despite a constant presence, definitions of the term “state violence” are porous, fluid, and not always as easily attainable as might be assumed. From the explicit to the implicit, state violence is documented, theorised, understood, and resisted by those it targets, often celebrated by those it bypasses, and what is successful in one context is often emulated, refined, and/or repurposed in another. Constantly shifting, ever-present, and often unseen, state violence seems an unavoidable reality of contemporary society.

To this end, this conference aims to bring together academics and activists to explore the boundaries, definitions, experiences, and manifestations of state violence to better understand the forms it takes and the means by which it is resisted. With a focus on the Nuclear Age—from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki up to the present day—and a global scope, we hope that the intersections of scholarly and activist praxis will reveal a tapestry of experiential and definitional snapshots of state violence since the end of the Second World War, and that collective discussions across disciplinary boundaries will provide a counter-balance to hidden and explicit features of state repression, social engineering, counter-insurgency, and discrimination as and through violence.

In advance of submitted abstracts, our initial plan is to place papers into two concurrent streams: one dealing with representations of state violence, and the other exploring responses to it. With this in mind, papers may explore, but are not limited to, the following themes:

Gender/Race/Sexuality/Disability and state violence;
Civil Defense as/and state violence
Borders/Nations as state violence
State violence in specific national contexts
Resistance(s) to/against state violence
Media complicity/media resistance
The dystopic state — the future/imaginaries of state violence
Propaganda
Alternatives to the state
Prisons/incarceration as state violence
Economics as/and state violence
The right-wing as state-sympathetic force?
Liberation movements
The spaces of state violence and resistance
(Counter)Insurgency as/and state violence
Forces of the state (police, paramilitary organisations, militarism)
State violence and the non-human animal
The Nuclear State

Activist Groups + Individuals

A number of panel sessions will be dedicated to activist groups/individuals to make use of. These can take the form of 'traditional' conference paper presentations, but are open to the interpretation of the group/individual applying. If you are planning to submit such a proposal, please make clear what form your session will take in your abstract. Sessions between 20 minutes and 1 hour.

Abstracts

Please submit abstracts of no longer than four hundred (400) words to [log in to unmask] by Monday December 15, 2018, with the subject 'Conference Abstract' in PDF format. Fully-formed panel proposals of three papers are also welcomed. Please submit panel proposals of no longer than fifteen hundred (1500) words to the above address by Saturday December 15, 2018, with the subject 'Conference Panel Proposal' in PDF format.

As this conference endeavours towards radical and liberatory positions, we aim to curate an inclusive and diverse programme, and therefore especially encourage abstracts from those scholars/activists less represented in the academy. In addition to this, we pledge the following: only vegan food will be provided at through the duration of the conference; conference registration fees will be set higher for those with institutional support in order to provide low/zero-cost registration for those without institutional support, and also to provide travel and/or accommodation bursaries for those who would otherwise be excluded from attendance; to provide opportunities for undergraduate/MA students to present and gain experience in parts of the academy they are usually excluded from.

For more information, and to join the network, please visit http://stateviolenceresearchnetwork.co.uk and find us on Twitter @stateviolenceRN

########################################################################

To unsubscribe from the CRIT-GEOG-FORUM list, click the following link:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=CRIT-GEOG-FORUM&A=1