Conferences
Performing Lives conference, July 2009
Staff from Drama and Film & TV, spearheaded by Adam Ainsworth (Drama), co-organised an international conference on Performing Lives from 6-8 July 2009, the second conference under the aegis of the Centre for Life Narratives. The conference invited analysis and debate on the relationship between life histories and the ways in which they are embodied and enacted in performance, across a range of cultures and a variety of media: drama, film, TV and video. It attracted speakers from a variety of countries, including Australia, Finland, France, Turkey and Switzerland, as well as researchers from the UK.
Panel topics included: Performing Performers, French Biopics, Beyond Bios, Music and Muses, (An)Otherness - Archetypes, Identity and Authenticity, Absent Lives/Deathly Presences, Playing Witness, Documentary as Intervention, and In the First Person: Performance Perspectives on Autobiography, Intimacy and Selfhood. Papers given by Kingston staff included Cathy O'Brien on 'An extraordinary couple: performing the life of Mary and Joseph', Andrea Rinke on 'Glamour, drugs and decadence: Performing the legacy of the Third Reich - Fassbinder's Veronika Voss (1982), Matt Melia on 'Kenneth Williams and the performance of the self', and Trish Reid on 'Truth and belief: Autobiography in the work of Improbable Theatre'.
The conference also incorporated a range of live performances which took place both on site and in the Rose Theatre, including a performance of Oscar Wilde's De Profundis by Corin Redgrave. The combination of live performances and academic papers ranging across drama, film and TV proved to be both innovative and fruitful.
Addiction and Obsession conference, July 2008
The Addiction and Obsession Conference, organised by Dr Andrea Rinke, ran for two and a half days (9-11 July 2008). Members of the Kingston Film and Television research community were joined by 50 speakers and delegates from all over the world (over 20 countries, ranging from Australia, Turkey, Serbia, Finland, Saudi Arabia to the USA and Canada).
It was one of the very first interdisciplinary conferences on the depiction of Addiction and Obsession.
Whilst the conference included speakers who focused on addictions themselves from a psychoanalytical (gambling, gaming, anorexia) or sociological (alcoholism) point of view, the emphasis was on the depiction of addiction in the arts: literature, film, television, the media, and the fine arts.
The stance of the key note speakers represented two poles in the spectrum of the definitions of addiction: the first speaker, Dr. Kevin McCarron (Reader in American literature at Roehampton University), pleaded passionately for the traditional (medical) definition of addiction as a physical dependence on a psychoactive substance, such as tobacco, alcohol and drugs.
The second speaker, Professor Mark Griffith (the world expert on gambling addiction) spoke for the wider definition of addiction, which includes the psychological dependence on activities, such as problem gambling, obsessive use of the internet, self harming, overeating and sex addiction.
Lively panel debates included questions such as: what constitutes a pleasurable habit as opposed to a painful neurotic compulsion, and when does a passion become a psychopathic obsession? Can we - and do we need to - distinguish between obsession (with an object of desire) and addiction? And what stance do the different forms of art and media take when they depict addiction?
We were delighted to be able to expand the range of voices on the topic/concept of addiction from theoreticians to practitioners in the field. Two addiction workers from the Kingston community, representing the Kaleidoscope Project, told the conference delegates about the history of the project, its ethics and their practical experiences at grass roots level. Kaleidoscope is one of the most innovative treatment programmes in the UK, and we were very honoured to have the founder of the Centre, Mr Eric Blakebury, MBE, sharing his views with us.
Proceedings from the Addiction and Obsession conference are currently being developed as the basis for a possible MA module and an edited collection or sole-authored monograph.
