10:00 – 10:15

Tea and Coffee

10:15 – 10:30

Introductions by Chair Dr Lucy Finchett-Maddock

10:30 – 11:45

Panel 1 – Techniques of Fear and Change

First as Tragedy, Then as Farce: The Slow Death of Social Democracy in the UK – Tom Frost, University of Sussex

A Fearful Symmetry? The Uses of and Responses to Fear by Leave and Remain Campaigners in the UK’s Referendum on EU Membership of June 2016 – Dr Nick Randell, Newcastle University

11:45 – 12:00

Break

12:00 – 13:15

Panel 2 – The Labour Party in its own Discourse

Inter-Generational Memory: The Labour Party and the Ghost of The Two Tonys – Daniel Lewis, University of York

The Spectre of Technological Revolution: Scientific Revolutions in Labours Old and New – Matthew Francis, University of Birmingham

13:15 – 14:15

Lunch

14:15– 15:45

Panel 3 – Radicalism and Resistance

H is for Heterotopia: Temporalities of the “new nature writing” – Dr Cathy Elliot, School of Public Policy University College London

Urban rhythms and the afterlives of conflict. Memory, affect and landscape in Derry/Londonderry (N. Ireland). – Garikoitz Gómez Alfaro, University of Brighton

A Heritage of New Terrorisms: The Chronotopology of Prevent Legislation in University Spaces – Heather McKnight, University of Sussex

15:45 – 16:30

Break

16:30 – 18:00

Book Launch: Emily Robinson, (2017) The language of progressive politics in modern Britain.

This book traces the word ‘progressive’ through modern British history, from the Enlightenment to Brexit. It explores the shifting meanings of this term and the contradictory political projects to which it has been attached. It also places this political language in its cultural context, asking how it relates to ideas about progressive social development, progressive business, and progressive rock music. 

‘Progressive’ is often associated with a centre-left political tradition, but this book shows that this was only ever one use of the term – and one that was heavily contested even from its inception. 

The power of the term ‘progressive’ is that it appears to anticipate the future. This can be politically and culturally valuable, but it is also dangerous. The suggestion that there is only one way forward has led to fear and doubt, anger and apathy, even amongst those who would like to consider themselves ‘progressive people’.

Emily Robinson is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Sussex, UK, Commissioning Editor of Renewal, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Her previous work includes History, Heritage and Tradition in Contemporary British Politics: Past Politics and Present Histories(2012).