Why Pamper Life??s Complexities? - A Symposium on The Smiths Manchester Institute of Popular Culture
Manchester Metropolitan University
April 8th and 9th 2005
The Smiths have had a singular impact on popular culture. They looked like nobody else and sounded like nobody else. The music of The Smiths contained an emotional depth and a technical virtuosity that moved people in a way that almost no other band has managed before or since. In spite of their enormous cultural significance and personal resonance, The Smiths have yet to receive sustained academic attention. To date, there have been remarkably few serious examinations of the band.
The purpose of this symposium is to put that right. The event seeks to draw together academics and others who wish to critically examine what The Smiths meant and continue to mean almost two decades after their untimely demise. Among the themes that we hope to address are: gender and sexuality, race and nationality, a sense of place, the imagination of class, the significance of Manchester in popular music, the aesthetics of the band, fan cultures and musical innovation.
Provisional Schedule
Friday 8 April
12.00-2.00: Registration
Tea and Coffee will be available.
2.00-3.00: Welcome and Opening Plenary
Introduction to the Conference: Fergus Campbell and Justin O??Connor
Opening Speaker: Dave Haslam
3.00-4.30: Parallel Sessions
Session A: ??Manchester, so much to answer for??
Katie Milestone (Manchester Metropolitan University) ??The Smiths, Manchester and Identity??
Gian Pietro Leonardi (University of Rome) ??Refractory Poles: Manchester and London in The Smiths?? imagery??
Ellie-Varvara Stathaki (University College London) ??Architecture through Music: Experiencing and Expressing Manchester??
Session B: ??England is Mine??: Place, Nation and Beyond
Sean Campbell (APU, Cambridge) ????Irish Blood, English Heart?: Nationality, Subjectivity and The Smiths??
Tara Brabazon (Murdoch University) ??There is a Light that Never Goes Out??
4.30-5.00: Tea and Coffee
5.00-6.00 Plenary Session.
John Harris: ??Sing Me to Sleep: The Smiths and the Demise of English Rock??
6.00-7.00 Wine Reception
8.00 - Smiths Disco at the Star and Garter
Saturday 9 April
10.00-11.30: Parallel Sessions
Session A:??In the days when you were hopelessly poor, I just liked you more??: Class, Politics and the Kitchen Sink
Colin Coulter (NUI Maynooth) ??A Double Bed and A Stalwart Lover For Sure: The Smiths, the Alchemy of Class and the End of Pop??
Kari Kallioniemi (University of Turku) ??The Theatres of Memory or Radical Chic? The Smiths and Early 1960s British Kitchen-Sink Cinema??
Paulo Oliveira (University of Aveiro, Portugal) ??The Smiths and Working Class Realist Aesthetics??
Session B: ??Will nature make a man of me yet???: Sex, Gender, Identity
Melinda Hsu (Meikai University, Japan) ??Posing as a ??Somdomite? on Top of the Pops: The Smiths and Camp Performance??
Cordelia Bradby (Goldsmiths College, London) ??Does the Body Rule the Mind or Does the Mind Rule the Body? I Dunno??
Kieran Cashell (Limerick Institute of Technology) ??Don??t Try to Wake Me in the Morning ? I Will Be Gone: Subjectivity, Suicide and The Smiths??
11.30-12.00: Tea and Coffee
12.00-1.00: Keynote Address.
Professor Sheila Whiteley (University of Salford)
??This Charming Man: The Smiths, Morrissey and Sexual Dialogics??
1.00-2.15: Break for Lunch
2.15-3.45: Parallel Sessions
Session A: ??We??ve something they??ll never have?? Fandom, Reception and Memory
Karl Maton (University of Keele) ??Last Night They Dreamt That Somebody Loved Them: Fans of The Smiths during the late 1980s??
Renate Muller, Marc Calmbach and Stefanie Rhein (University of Ludwigsburg) ??What Difference Does It Make? The Empirical Aesthetics of The Smiths: How Do Young People Relate to The Smiths?? Aesthetics? An Experimental Audiovisual Survey??
Felicity Cull (Murdoch University) ??Pity you didn??t sign The Smiths: The Smiths and Popular Memory??
Session B: ??Keats and Yeats Are on Your Side??: Visual and Literary Style
Michael Calderbank (MMU Cheshire) ??More to Life Than Books? Dialectics of Aestheticism and Naturalism: The Literary Sensibility of The Smiths??
Cecilia Mello (University of London) ??I Don??t Owe You a Thing: The Smiths and the British New Wave??
Gavin Hopps (University of Oxford) ??Morrissey and the Light That Never Goes Out??
3.45-4.15 Tea and Coffee
4.15-5.45: Parallel Sessions
Session A: ??The Songs That Saved Your Life??: Words, Music, Sleeves
Jonathan Hiam (University of North Carolina) ??This Way and That Way: The Poetics of The Smiths?? ??Stretch Out and Wait???
Tonje Hakensen (Oslo University) ????I Didn??t Realize You Wrote Such Bloody Awful Poetry?: The Performance of Words and Music in ??The Boy with the Thorn in His Side???
Ellen Gorman (George Mason University, Virginia) ??Hand in Glove: The Politics of Gender and Aesthetics in The Smiths?? Sleeves??
Session B: ??The Only Ones Who Ever Stood By You??? Fandom, Reception, Industry
Amanda Graham (University of Oxford) ??The Music of The Smiths as Inside Joke??
Lisa Garrett (Roger Davies Artist Management) ??I Stole and Lied Because You Asked Me To??: Considering the Transparency of the Smiths?? Business Practice in Relation to Their Creativity??
5.45-6.00: Short Tea Break
6.00-7.00: Plenary Session
Simon Goddard: ??Stop Me If You Think You??ve Heard This One Before: Behind the Music of The Smiths??
9.00: The Smyths (Smiths tribute band), Dry Bar, Oldham Street.
Sunday 10 April
11.00 Stephen Wright Photographs at Salford Lads?? Club
1.00 Tour of Manchester by Phill Gatenby ?? Departs from Manchester Metropolitan University
http://www.mmu.ac.uk/news/news_item.php?id=251
