Archives, Aesthetics, and Alterity: Evaluating the “Negotiating the Revolt” Conference in Prague

Authors : Hüseyin Serbes

Pages : 427-433

Doi:10.32739/etkilesim.2025.8.16.321

View : 41 | Download : 237

Publication Date : 2025-10-31

Article Type : Other Papers

Abstract :This study presents an evaluative account of the international conference Negotiating the Revolt: Punk in Times of Political Transformation, held in Prague from 16 to 18 May 2025, from a communication studies perspective. Organized by the Institute of Czech History at Charles University and supported by the Czech Science Foundation, the event was part of a broader research project on punk culture during the post-socialist transition in Czechia and Slovakia. It was conducted in collaboration with the Czech-Slovak Punk Scholars Network, the Centre for the Study of Popular Culture, and the Archive of Czech and Slovak Subcultures. The conference examined punk not merely as a musical genre, but as a communicative practice that encompasses aesthetic, political, and archival dimensions. Through panel sessions, archival exhibitions, memory walks, and zine exchanges, it explored punk’s role in producing “history from below” and assessed how fanzines and other subcultural materials function as communicative strategies against dominant narratives. With contributions from scholars across various regions, including Türkiye, the conference offered a valuable platform to investigate the transnational networks and local distinctiveness of punk scenes. This evaluation integrates ethnographic findings on the Istanbul punk scene with the broader thematic structure of the conference to analyze how punk continues to shape alternative publics, communicative subjectivities, and cultural memory in contemporary contexts.
Keywords : İsyanı Müzakere Etmek Konferansı, punk, fanzin, altkültürel bellek, iletişimsel direniş

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