Research
Centre for Religion and Popular Culture
_________________________
Altered
States
Reflections
on Induced Transcendence in Popular
Culture
_________________________
1-3
February 2008
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Throughout the history of religion thinkers have
sought and recorded altered states as well as, of
course, warning of the dangers of so doing. It is not
surprising, therefore, that over the last two hundred
years, there has accumulated a vast body of work
exploring altered states and transcendence. From
Thomas De Quincey and Charles Baudelaire to Aldous
Huxley and William S. Burroughs, and from Ken Russell
to The Beatles, psychedelic art and contemporary
electronic dance music, there is a rich vein of
popular culture devoted to the spiritual significance
of induced altered states.
_________________________
St.
Deiniol’s Library
Church
Lane, Hawarden, Flintshire, North Wales CH5 3DF, UK
Tel:
+ 44 (0)1244 532350
Fax:
+ 44 (0)1244 520643
Conference
fee (including bed, dinner, and continental
breakfast): £100
To book, please email Ms Karen Parry:
deiniol.visitors@btconnect.com
Website:
http://www.st-deiniols.org/
Programme
Friday 1 February 2008
5:30 Welcome
Drink
7:00
Dinner
8:00-9:00
Dr Brian Baker (Lancaster University)
The
Pleasures of Dissolution:
2001: A
Space Odyssey, Solaris, Altered States
Saturday
2 February 2008
8:30
Breakfast
10:00–11.00
Anna Powell (Manchester Metropolitan
University) Pharmacoanalysis
and Ken
Russell’s
Altered States
11:00-11:30
Coffee
11:30-12.30
Charlie Blake (Liverpool Hope University)
The
Elves Of Disintegration:
Immanence,
Transcendence and The Spirit Of Velocity
12:30-1.30
Rina Arya (University of Chester)
Transcendental
States in Surrealism
1:30-3:30
Lunch
3:30-4:30
Fabrizio Ferrari (University of Chester)
‘No
sex, no drugs: just do something
mystical!’. The cultural rehab of the Bauls of
Bengal, from esoteric practitioners
to bourgeois heroes and world music icons.
4:30-5:00
Coffee
5:00-6:00
Chris Christodoulou (London South Bank
University) Warrior
Stance: Kinesis,
Control,
and Martial Arts Spirituality in Drum ‘n’
Bass
6:00-8:00
Dinner
8:00-9:00
Hillegonda
Rietveld
(London South Bank University)
Cyborg
Spirituality in
Nomadic Electronic Dance Cultures
Sunday
3 February 2008
8:30
Breakfast
9:30-10.30
Andy Letcher Hyperspace
or hyperbole? Terence McKenna’s debt to
Teilhard
de
Chardin and what this implies about psychedelic
consciousness
10.30-11:00
Coffee
11.00-12:00
Stella
S. Lau (Hong
Kong University)
Club Culture and Christianity: The Altered
States and ‘Spirituality’ in Electronic
Dance Music
12:30-1:30
Lunch & Departure