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Cultural Studies Now - International Conference opens today

Thursday 19 July 2007

CULTURAL STUDIES NOW, a major international conference organised by the School of Social Sciences, Media & Cultural Studies at the University of East London, opened today, Friday 19 July, at the University of East London (UEL) Docklands Campus.

The conference will be addressed by world-renowned researchers and scholars including Ien Ang, Rosi Braidotti, Kuan-Hsing Chen, Jeremy Gilbert, Judith Halberstam, Stuart Hall, Dick Hebdige, Doreen Massey, Horace Ove, Aine O’Brien and Alan Grossman.

500 delegates from 43 countries are taking part in the conference, which explores issues as diverse as eco-politics, impacts of technology, feminism, art, race and ethnicity.

Mica Nava, Chair of the Cultural Studies Now organising committee and Professor of Cultural Studies at UEL, said: “Cultural studies as an approach has been extraordinarily influential since its emergence in the 1970s. It has succeeded in bringing everyday, popular and domestic concerns into academic discourse, and has spread around the world.

“It has also had a substantial impact on related disciplines such as history, geography, sociology, art history, literary studies, philosophy, pedagogy and cultural practice. The question now is: has Cultural Studies been expanded, relocated and disseminated to the point where it no longer has a coherent identity? This is one of many questions we are addressing this week.”

The conference runs until Sunday - full programme on www.uel.ac.uk/ccsr/culturalstudiesnow.htm

The University of East London is a widely-recognised centre for research and teaching in the Cultural Studies field. In 1985 the first ever Department of Cultural Studies in the UK was established and UEL was rated 5 for research in Communications, Media and Cultural Studies in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) both in 1996 and 2001. UEL’s School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies is located on the university's newly-built waterside Docklands campus.

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For details and pictures contact Patrick Wilson: 020 8223 2061 or 07951 797 975

Notes to Editors

The University of East London (UEL) is a global learning community with over 28,000 students from over 120 countries world-wide. Our vision is to achieve recognition, both nationally and internationally, as a successful and inclusive regional university proud of its diversity, committed to new modes of learning which focus on students and enhance their employability, and renowned for our contribution to social, cultural and economic development, especially through our research and scholarship. We have a strong track-record in widening participation and working with industry.

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