This two-day workshop will bring together scholars from various countries and disciplines to discuss one of the world's greatest and longest-lasting cultural events, the Eurovision Song Contest. Register for in-person or virtual attendance at https://lovelovepeacepeace.eventbrite.co.uk
Eurovision, which will be held in May 2023 for the 67th time, has become—and labelled itself as—a celebration of unity as well as diversity in a growingly polarising world. Recent developments in and outside of Europe, most notably the war in Ukraine, last year’s winner, have impacted and been reflected in the dynamics of Eurovision. Politics and international relations, media, gender and LGBTQ+ studies, musicology, sociology, and many more areas of research are thus intertwined in analysing this extremely colourful and popular, yet still understudied, European tradition.
Focusing on different aspects of political and queer theory, the workshop will include in-person and virtual panels on tensions between queer and European politics; the relationship between pop, identity, and memory; camp culture, sexuality, and pink-washing, and more, as well as new topics such as the Eurovision archive and the age of microcelebrity. Dr Catherine Baker (Hull), a world-leading scholar of Eurovision, will give the keynote lecture on Eurovision and LGBTQ+ Visibility in City Space.
Please note that this is a workshop, not a conference: some speakers will be sharing ideas that are works-in-progress. We ask attendees to be respectful at all times, and to think of the session as a 'community of practice.'
Workshop Programme
Day 1 (in-person)
09:00 Tea & Coffee
09:30 Introductory Remarks
09:45 Keynote: Eurovision and LGBTQ+ Visibility in City Space
Catherine Baker, University of Hull
10:45 Break
11:00 Session 1: Camp, Sexuality, and the Archive
Chair: Amber Stevenson
1. ‘And Maybe…’: Rewatching and the Potentials of the Eurovision Archive
Oliver Lewis, University of Roehampton
2. In the Eurovision Camp: The Eurovision Song Contest as Camp Space
Marie Josephine Bennett, University of Winchester
3. ‘Nessuno mi può giudicare’: The Small but Interesting Overlap between Sex Work and Eurovision
Rosie Hodsdon, University of Sunderland
12:30 Lunch
1:30 Session 2: Queer and European Politics
Chair: Marie Josephine Bennett
1. ‘For Just One Night’ – Defying European Political Hegemony in the Eurovision Song Contest, Takeaways from Turkey and Ukraine of the Last Two Decades
Gad Yair and Chen Ozeri, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
2. Eurovision, Queer Visibility, and Political Transition in Post-Soviet Europe
Evgeny Gurin, University of Oxford
3. Fear of a Queer Eurovision? Media Portrayal of the ESC in Light of Hungary’s Withdrawal
Alexandra Sipos, Centre for Social Sciences
3:00 Break
3:30 Session 3: Pop and Identity
Chair: Rosie Hodsdon
1. A True Woman, a Warrior and a Costume: Metaphorical Construction of Queer Eurovision Winners’ Identities in Spanish Press
Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez, University of Valladolid
2. The March to Waterloo through Europop: ABBA at the Eurovision Song Contest
Abigail Parker, University of Nottingham
5:00 Drinks Reception
Day 2 (online)
13:00 Session 1
Chair: Paul David Flood
1. A Trophy for Two Drones: The 2022 ESC and the War in Ukraine
Meital Viner Serdtse and Inbar Noy-Freifeld, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
2. Is the Pink-Washing Queerness in Eurovision an Answer to Populist Anti-LGBTQ+ Discourses?
Inés Fernández-Caba, University of Granada
3. Hatred Will Prevail: Hatari, Israel, and Eurovision’s Place in the Antisocial Archive
Shiloh Cooper, University of Pittsburgh
4. ‘I was defeated, you won the war’: Waterloo and Napoleonic Memory in the Eurovision Song Contest
Alberto Cañas de Pablos, Complutense University Madrid
14:45 Session 2
Chair: Elad Carmel
1. ‘Everybody Wanna Move Like Us!’: Soul-Pop and Afro-Swedishness in the Eurovision Song Contest
Paul David Flood, Eastman School of Music
2. Stars on and off the Stage: The Eurovision Song Contest in the Age of Microcelebrity
Karen Fricker, Brock University and Peter Rehberg, University of Cincinnati
16:15 Concluding Remarks
16:30 Workshop Ends
Organiser: Dr Elad Carmel (University of Edinburgh, Hebrew University of Jerusalem).
This event is supported by the Susan Manning Workshop Fund from the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. In the event that virtual tickets sell out, please email iash@ed.ac.uk to join the waiting list.