Wellcome Trust funded seminar series
Researching Representations of Child Sexual Abuse in Contemporary Culture
Covid-19 Update
The seminars scheduled for March and April had to be postponed due to Covid-19. They were to include talks by scholars of history, sociology, social work and psychology on their research on CSA, by scholars of narrative medicine and creative media effects on how cultural representations of CSA affect audiences, and by health practitioners who work with survivors on how cultural representations of CSA affect their work. The current plan for completing this work is to repurpose the seminar series into a 2-day workshop bringing the remaining speakers together to share their research and discuss the best approaches for exploring this important, neglected theme in contemporary cultural production. The workshop will include a new strand to facilitate discussion of the experiences of survivors under the Covid-19 lockdowns, and the related area of abduction/‘bunker’ narratives. Updates will be posted here or contact Ailise Bulfin.
Feb 4th
Project launch: CSA witness seminar with Hazel Larkin & Lavinia Kerwick: Survivors’ perspectives. 1-2.30pm, room K114
Feb 13th
Representations of CSA in literature: Miles Leeson & Deirdre Sullivan. 4.30-6pm, room C216
Feb 27th
Representations of CSA in drama & film: Ruth Barton, Emilie Pine & Neha Kamrani. 4.00-5.30pm, room C216
Mar 26th
Representations of CSA and narrative medicine: Rosaleen McElvaney, Emily Troscianko and Clare Hayes-Brady. 4.30-6pm, room C216
April 2nd
Representations of CSA and social studies: Joe Mooney & Marie Keenan. 4.30-6pm, room C216
April 7th
Representations of CSA: Audience Responses, film & psychology: Xavier Aldana Reyes & Brendan Rooney. 4.30-6pm, room TBA.
April 21st
Representations of CSA: sociology and history: Claire Cunnington & Lindsey Earner-Byrne. 5-6.30pm, room TBA.
April 30
Representations of CSA: psychology and practitioners’ perspectives: Leanne Gregory, Maeve Lewis, Simon McCarthy-Jones and Shaakya Vembar. 4.30-6pm, room C216.
The seminars run from February to April in the Newman Building, UCD. Organiser contact: ailise.bulfin@ucd.ie
This interdisciplinary Wellcome Trust-funded seminar series explores how child sexual abuse is represented in contemporary culture in works like novels, films and TV series, and seeks to understand how these representations affect both survivors and general audiences. It opens with a witness seminar by survivors of sexual violence giving their perspectives on how culture supports sexual violence. It features talks by cultural scholars who work on representations of child sexual abuse in literature, drama and film. It includes the perspectives of scholars from other disciplines, such as history, sociology, social work and psychology, who research child sexual abuse. And it also features talks by scholars of narrative medicine and creative media effects, and by health practitioners who work with survivors of abuse.
Social Media Links