Popular music and wellbeing conference

Date:: Thursday 14th - Friday 15th September 2023
Venue:: St Mary's University

Popular music culture continually seeks to create states of individual and collective joy, ecstasy, transcendence, and belonging, as well as spaces in which subjectivities can be composed, transformed and/or radically (re)imagined. On the other hand, popular music also produces widely circulating discourses about the reverse of wellbeing, such as anxiety, alienation, abuse, isolation, depression, and self-harm.

This two-day conference brings together an international set of scholars who will explore these and other issues from different angles of vision. We'll discuss key themes, such as:

histories of popular music as a discourse of identity and belonging
the use of music as therapeutic intervention
grassroots music spaces as sites of community organisation
pop music and body images
mindfulness as musical listening
pop music as a commentary on mental health awareness.

The conference will take place on the St Mary’s campus in Twickenham. Although occasional papers will be delivered online, you will not be able to attend the conference itself online.