Past Conferences

For information on how to host an event or conference see: EBSN Documentation

2012 Conference. The EBSN’s Inaugural Conference took place at the Roosevelt Study Center in Middelburg (The Netherlands) on 5-7 September, 2012. Here members gave papers and talks and contributed to the writing of the Network’s mission statement.

2013 Conference. Our second Conference Aalborg 2013 was in Aalborg, Denmark, from 28-30, August. With 55 attendees, Aalborg University’s Bent Sørensen opened the conference at the Nordkraft Campus on Wednesday morning at 8:30am for 3 full days of papers, multimedia events and networking.

2014 Conference. The Third Annual Conference was held in Tangier, hosted by the Hotel Chellah and co-organzied with Khalid Amine. As well as keynote talks from Oliver Harris and Anouar Majid, there were over forty papers, a multi-media performance and musical sets featuring Eric Andersen and an impromptu appearance from Moroccan rapper El Haqed.

2015 Conference. The Fourth Conference was at ULB in Brussels, October 28-31, and organised by Franca Bellarsi. With keynotes from poet and Naropa Institute founder Anne Waldman and Beat scholar Daniel Kane, papers showed the widening range of topics explored in Beat Studies. Anne also gave a stunning poetry performance.

2016 Conference. The Fifth Annual Conference, co-organised by Doug Field and Oliver Harris, was held in Manchester, hosted by The Wonder Inn, a city centre community arts venue. Reflecting the conference’s two central themes of music and science, there were keynote talks from CP Lee, a legend of Manchester’s music scene of the 1970s and ’80s, and from Andrew Lees, Professor of Neurology at UCL. From America, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, The Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, and the UK, over 100 scholars, students, poets, musicians, filmmakers and publishers attended or participated, including performances by Libby Houston and Pete Brown, The Band of Holy Joy and Eric Andersen.

2017 Conference. The Sixth Annual Conference, co-organised by  Véronique Lane, Peggy Pacini, and Frank Rynne took place in Paris, hosted by The University of Chicago Center in Paris. The conference welcomed over 100 presenters, artists, students, scholars, and EBSN members in what has been our largest EBSN event to date! Focusing on the themes of Collaboration, Publication, and Translation the event featured keynote speakers Andrew Hussey and Ann Charters, as well as talks and performances by Jennifer Scappettone and Lydia Lunch.

2018 Conference. The Seventh Annual Conference, co-organised by Paul Pechmann, Harriet Nachtmann, Thomas Antonic and Polina Mackay in collaboration with the Vienna Poetry School, took place at the Kunstlerhaus in Vienna, Austria. Featuring a wide array of speakers and with unique and forward thinking keynote speech from musician Moor Mother, the conference focused on themes of interdisiplinarity and activism. With explosive evening performances from Moor Mother and others, this was one of the most memorable conferences to date.

2019 Conference. The Eighth Annual Conference, co-organised by Marilena Zackheos and Polina Mackay was held at the ARTOS Foundation in Nicosia, Cyprus. Its theme was ‘Moving Geographies’, and focused on the Beat connections with travel and migration. Talks spanned a range of topics and examined Beat issues with a global scope. With a tremendously friendly atmosphere throughout, the conference was rounded off with a highly entertaining performance poetry evening.

2020 Special Conference. This planned double event was cancelled due to COVID-19. Due to be held in both London and Paris, the unique line-up aimed to represent the enduring nature of the cut-up method. A revised, rescheduled and remixed event will be held in Paris in 2023.

2021 Virtual Conference. Due to the continuing impact of COVID-19, the EBSN decided to hold a virtual conference via Zoom, using the opportunity to assess the state of Beat studies and consider new scholarship and approaches. Organized by Benjamin J. Heal, Estíbaliz Encarnación-Pinedo and Chad Weidner.

2022 Conference. Our first post-COVID conference went off with a swing in the beautiful city of Murcia in Spain, ably organized by Estíbaliz Encarnación-Pinedo and Juan Antonio Suárez. Held at the University of Murcia, it explored “Beat Temporalities”.