The Edge

HARC/SILK* Interdisciplinary Research Theme

Following the success of “Ruination & Decay” (HARC’s 2019 interdisciplinary research theme) the HARC & SILK research clusters have invited contributions from disciplines across the Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences engaging with the 2020/21 research theme - The Edge.

The concept of The Edge denotes the demarcation of a boundary or a delimitation between contrasting physical and conceptual entities, categorisations and perceptions. This conference aims to explore both the tensions and concessions of being on or at the edge, and the socio-cultural processes by which The Edge or outer limit of an entity is determined. Physical and cultural boundaries and borderlands may well be key concerns, but so too will be those transitional spaces (real and imagined) that take us there. Such tensions between stasis/dynamism; dissonance/consonance encourage us to enquire about what is being kept in and out of the core, as well as about what merely exists at the edge and the values that are attached to such positions.