[URBANTH-L]CFP: Discourse, Power, Resistance (Manchester, UK)

[Angela Jancius]

From: Eric Herring <eric.herring at bristol.ac.uk>


The 8th Conference of the Discourse, Power, Resistance Series

6-8 April 2009
Manchester Metropolitan University , UK

Geoffrey Manton Conference Centre

Keynote speakers:
Zygmunt Bauman
Cameron McCarthy

(other keynote speakers to be confirmed)

What is the relationship between power and the academy? Academics are
effectively government employees, told what to do and how to do it. In
research they are told what matters and what does not, and this tells them
what they will get research funding for and what they won&rsquo;t; and they
are told what methods to use &ndash; what will count as evidence and what
won&rsquo;t. In teaching they are told what to teach and what not to teach,
how to teach it and how to assess it. Teachers and learners tick boxes,
performing as trainers and trainees with constant reference to the demands
of the workplace, and subject to a Byzantine apparatus of monitoring and
surveillance. If they transgress, punishment follows, normally in the form
of the withdrawal of funding.

The Discourse, Power, Resistance conference has returned to these issues
year by year since the first conference in 2002. This year we ask:
* what are the current threats to academic freedom?
* is the academy as powerless as it appears to be?
* how far, and in what ways, are academics complicit in the processes of
disempowerment?
* has it been different - better or worse - in the past?
* is it the same in all contemporary societies?
* why does any of this matter?
* what is to be done?

Please submit ABSTRACTS to: dpr at mmu.ac.uk

Information on the conference will be posted on the website
http://www.esri.mmu.ac.uk/dpr/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Eric Herring
Reader in International Politics
Department of Politics, University of Bristol,
10 Priory Road, Bristol, BS8 1TU, United Kingdom.
Tel. +44(0)117 9288582. Mobile +44(0)7771 966608.
eric.herring at bristol.ac.uk
http://www.bris.ac.uk/politics