CCA, Glasgow • 31 March 2007 • 10.30 – 5pm • FREE but ticketed

tickets available from CCA box office
350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3JD
Box office: 0141 352 4900
Map: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=G2%203JD

The publication of the draft Culture (Scotland) Bill marks a defining moment in the relationship between the state and its cultural workers. The response so far has been largely hostile and this symposium will examine the arguments for and against the proposed legislation. However, the Bill is also published against a wider context of neoliberal reform in Scotland and elsewhere, marked by a diminishment in the freedoms of artists, intellectuals and their audiences. In the wake of worrying developments in higher education, local authorities and elsewhere, the symposium sets out to explore the extent of the privatisation of public culture. Are we witnessing a decisive turning of the Thatcherite screw in Scotland?

10.30am for 11am start

'Critiquing the Bill'
Owen Logan, photographer, Research Fellow, University of Aberdeen

'Don't look back in anger'
Rebecca Gordon Nesbitt, curator and writer based in Glasgow

'Concerns with handing over Glasgow’s Cultural & Leisure Services to a Private Trust'
John Devine, UNISON convener, Culture & Leisure Services, Glasgow

‘The wider neoliberal policy frame'
Alex Law, Lecturer in Sociology, Division of Sociology, School of Social & Health Sciences, University of Abertay Dundee

Lunch: 1pm - 2pm

'Beyond Cultural Policy'
Jim McGuigan, Professor of Cultural Analysis & Sociology Programme Director, Dept. of Social Sciences Loughborough University

'The policy and politics of privatisation: the case of La Scala, Milan'
Paola Merli, School of English, Performance and Historical Studies, De Montfort University

'Cultural responses to neoliberal globalisation: Avoiding false theoretical alternatives'
Neil Davidson, Public Interest Research Fellow, Department of Geography & Sociology, Strathclyde University

Discussion: 4pm - 5pm

For further information please contact: variantmag@btinternet.com
Or see: http://www.variant.org.uk/events.html

Supported by: CCA; Variant; Dept. of Geography & Sociology, University of Strathclyde; Scottish Arts Council; and the good will of the speakers & guests.

Links:

Draft Culture (Scotland) Bill:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/ArtsCulture/CulturalPolicy

UNISON Campaigns : CULTURE AND LEISURE TRUST
http://www.glasgowcityunison.org.uk/id3.html

UNISON : Leisure Trusts Briefing 148 December 2006:
http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/briefings/leisuretrusts.html

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