Call for Papers - Reflections on Revenge: an International Conference on the Culture and Politics of Vengeance

Conference venue: University of Leicester, UK
Period: September 2-4, 2015
Deadline for submitting abstracts: April 2, 2015

The taste for revenge, whether morsel or dish served cold, is something people, groups and nations, and even animals desire. Since time immemorial, individuals and communities have done justice by harming those who have harmed them, despite the costs, and the avengers immortalised as heroes and villains. While the hurts and methods for addressing them may differ, blood feuds, the killing of Osama bin Laden, and revenge porn are all motivated by the need to get even.

This interdisciplinary conference will ask who seeks revenge and why, how it is done, how it is justified, how it is represented, how it feels to get revenge or be on the receiving end. This includes revenge starting with the smallest workplace slights, through family disputes and lynch mobs, to political violence, war and terrorism. We invite contributions, including those not in the academic paper format, from any area of biological, human and social sciences, arts and humanities, and more, that are related to topics including but not limited to:

Confirmed keynote speaker: Philippe Sands QC
This is a multimedia event, and will be contributing to the production of a documentary on revenge by Rex Bloomstein and Justin Temple (RexEntertainment) as well as traditional academic outputs.

Please submit a 250 word abstract via email to revenge@le.ac.uk by April 2nd, 2015.

Department of Criminology
tel: +44 (0)116 252 3946/2458
fax: +44 (0)116 252 5788
e-mail: criminology@le.ac.uk