Authenticity

CModS postgraduate forum second annual symposium

The signs of authenticity pervade our everyday interactions with the world, from the authentic takeaway to the historical television re-enactment and the claimed impartiality of the commercial press. In response to the British riots in the summer of 2011, Tudor historian David Starkey made the distinction between the authentic and inauthentic citizenry. Those who partook in looting and affray were figured as outside authentic structures of legal and moral behaviour, 'feral' even. The insidious and barely concealed attribution of inauthenticity to what in London was a predominantly black community set off racial tension that for many years
now has been thought of as behind us. Authenticity, then, had become the buzzword in the reenlivened discourses of politics, race, class and culture.

Through this interdisciplinary conference, the Centre for Modern Studies Postgraduate Forum seeks to explore and question the associations and assumptions that have come to coalesce around the concept of the 'authentic'.

Authenticity symposium programme (PDF , 234kb)