Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 14-17th December 2016 Program Index

Moallem examines film haye-jangi, or war movies that were made in Iran during and after the Iran-Iraq War
(1980–1988). The Iran-Iraq war divided the Iranian national space into three different locations: battlefield,
home front, and diaspora. Media and film narratives have had a crucial role in linking these spaces with each
other through the representation of gendered citizen-subjects inhabiting a melancholic return to the time of
the nation. Moallem argues that by presenting war as a fictional spectacle these films narrate the nation as
unified and the war as “sacred defense,” while also opening space to more fractured notions of masculinity
and of masculine hegemony in crisis.
Samir Dayal
Trappings of the Body: New Masculinities and “the Natural” in Indian Cinema
Dayal explores the emergence of new masculinities in contemporary Indian cinema. Many contemporary
Indian films screen a range of alternative images of masculinity – hypermasculine, queer or otherwise exorbitant
performatives. While these performatives challenge traditional ideas of masculine gender roles in
Indian cinema, some do more: they also queer the conceptual category of a “natural” and sovereign
masculinity. Although he briefly discusses other Indian films about augmented, disrupted or alternative
masculinities, his focus will be on filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh’s independent film, Chitrangada (2012), about
a man preparing to undergo sex-reassignment surgery.
1F
Weekend Societies: Electronic Dance Music Festivals and Event-Cultures (Chair, Nicholas Carah)
Ed Montano
The Rise (and Fall) of Stereosonic and Australian Commercial EDM Festivals
The past decade saw an explosion in popularity of commercial EDM festivals in Australia. Festivals such as
Parklife, Creamfields and Future Music propelled EDM culture into the mainstream, played out in open
public spaces such as parks, stadiums and cultural quarters. Based on a decade of ethnographic research in
the Sydney and Melbourne commercial EDM scenes and on interviews with the promoters of the
Stereosonic festival, this paper details the strategies that underpinned the development of Australia’s most
commercially successful EDM festival. The 2013 multimillion-dollar acquisition of Stereosonic by the
relaunched EDM-focused American media conglomerate SFX Entertainment was indicative of the festival’s
commercial success, although this was tempered by the recent bankruptcy restructure of SFX and the
subsequent announcement of Stereosonic’s hiatus in 2016 (and possible permanent demise). Through a case
study of Stereosonic, the paper will consider the commercialisation and commodification of the EDM festival
spectacle experience.
Alice O’Grady
Festival Circuit
Dancing Outdoors: DiY Ethics and Democratized Practices of Well-being on the UK Alternative
Focusing on the UK’s vibrant alternative festival scene, this paper examines how traces of the free party
movement in the late 1980s continue to pervade the ethos and aesthetic register of contemporary events. It
considers the potent DiY ethic of the campsite that emerged as a result of the convergence of Travellers with
sounds systems such as Spiral Tribe, Exodus and Bedlam. It examines how the aesthetics and ethics of these
rural, grassroots gatherings hark back to a particular moment in British history and how the sights, sounds
and cultures of the current festival circuit are intimately connected to the histories from which they grew.
The paper argues for a reading of outdoor space, as experienced within the frame of the alternative festival,
as a locale for the performance of political and personal freedoms. It asks how the cultural legacy of
opposition through dancing outdoors serves as an expression of democratic culture and as spatial practice of
belonging. It makes explicit the links between alternative forms of democratic participation and sensations
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