And the winner is...? Prizes and awards in arts and culture
One day symposium hosted by CAMEo Research Institute for Cultural and Media Economies, University of Leicester
Monday 4 June 2018
Keynote Speaker: Dr Anna Auguscik (University of Oldenburg) author of Prizing Debate: The Fourth Decade of the Booker Prize and the Contemporary Novel in the UK. (Bielefeld: transcript, 2017).
‘The custom of awarding prizes, medals, or trophies to artists […] is both an utterly familiar and unexceptional practice and a profoundly strange and alienating one.’ - James F English, Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards and the Circulation of Cultural Value (2005), p.1
What is a cultural prize? Who receives them, and why? This one day symposium seeks to bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to discuss cultures of prize-giving, and the diverse range of cultural prizes and awards now circulating within the cultural industries, arts and wider creative economy. Cultural awards can be defined as prizes and honours gifted to cultural products, or their creators/producers, as signification of the product’s high quality or prestige. Yet the status of such prizes and the ways in which they are imagined, created and allocated can tell us much about the politics of value and participation in the arts and cultural industries. The symposium provides the opportunity to discuss and compare research, approaches and methodologies with peers from other disciplinary fields in order to help develop a greater, and more comprehensive, understanding of cultural awards today.
| Time | Panel/Speakers | |
|
9.00am–9.30am |
Registration | |
|
9.30am–9.40am |
Welcome | Stevie Marsden |
| 9.40am–10.30am | Keynote | Anna Auguscik (University of Oldenburg) What is an award? Methods, Media, and the Man Booker Prize |
| 10.30am–10.50am | Coffee Break | |
| 10.50am–12.35pm | Panel 1 |
“Did I really earn this?”: Consecrating Value & Bestowing Prestige Thomas Thurnell-Read (Loughborough University) ‘No, you won't see anyone promoting a bronze’: Awards and Ambivalence Amongst Craft Gin Producers Emma-Jayne Reekie (University of Liverpool) “The Times They Are A-Changin’: Politicians, Musicians and the Political Award Will Smith (University of Stirling) ‘The little-known Constable Trophy’: valuing a northern prize for writers in the north Lisa McCormick (University of Edinburgh) Scandalous Choices: Toward a Sociology of Competition Controversies |
| 12.35pm–1.25pm | Panel 2 | Lunch |
| 1.25pm–3.10pm | Panel 2 |
“This door tonight has been opened”: Neglected voices & awards’ diversity problems Monica Sandler (UCLA) Your Oscar Vote Matters: Cultural Production and the Impact of Voter Policy, Rules, and Politics in Academy Awards History Helen Gørrill (University of Edinburgh) Gender Parity and Arts Prizes: ‘Only Men are Capable of Aesthetic Greatness’ Bret Johnson (Loughborough University) Literary Networks and Institutional Support for Caribbean Modernists in Post-War Britain: George Lamming, the Somerset Maugham Award, and Michael Joseph Claire Jenkins (University of Leicester)The nominees aren’t….: Women and the elusive Best Director Oscar |
| 3.10pm–4.30pm | Panel 3 |
“Don’t Tweet this!”: Researching Awards in Real Time Christina Neuwirth (University of Stirling/University of Glasgow) The History of the Scottish Women Writers Prize: Describing a history of a prize that doesn’t exist yet as part of the effort to set up that prize Stevie Marsden and Claire Squires (University of Leicester & University of Stirling) The First Rule of Judging Club…: An Autoethnographic Analysis of the Saltire Society Literary Awards Daniel Massie (University of Glasgow) Some Problems with Oscar: An Audio-Visual essay (Please note: This presentation includes discussion of abuse, rape, and harassment within the context of the #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns.) |
| 4.30pm–4.50pm | Break | |
| 4.50pm–5.50pm | Workshop |
Claire Squires (University of Stirling) Make a Prize! A Flip-Flap Approach to Prize Culture |
| 5.50pm–6.00pm | Final thoughts |