19-20 June 2023, Keele University, UK

Joint Symposium of the Research Networks

Swearing in Scandinavia and Consortium for Research about Profanity

Swearing in Scandinavia (SwiSca)

The Swearing in Scandinavia (SwiSca) research network consists of a group of scholars united by the goals of conducting multidisciplinary research on the subject of swearing and of establishing the Nordics as a dynamic center for cutting-edge swearing research. Initially comprising a small number of Scandinavians, the network now boasts additional members from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, but also from Finland and Iceland. Affiliate members and network collaborators include researchers from Europe, the UK and the US. The SwiSca name assures a continued association between Scandinavia and swearing research, and the SwiSca network strives to further promote Scandinavia as the center for contemporary swearing research. Critical to this goal is the facilitation of collaboration not only between the network members within the Nordics, but also between Nordic researchers and their international colleagues. To this end, the regular installments of the SwiSca symposium play a vital role.

 

Consortium for Research about Profanity (CRAP)

The Consortium for Research About Profanity is a collection of researchers working on understanding how profanity functions in minds, between people, and across societies. Founded in 2020 at Oxford University, the consortium aims to connect early career researchers with senior scholars and to provide international network opportunities. As a group, the network benefits from its members’ diverse expertise in formulating experimental paradigms and in understanding and communicating the findings.

 

SwiSca research symposia

As a network event, the SwiSca symposia serve to support and facilitate swearing research by providing intimate fora for network and non-network scholars to meet and collaborate. The aims of the symposia are to bring together international swearing researchers from all academic career stages, showcase swearing research across a variety of languages, and promote dissemination and publication opportunities. The symposia also target a general public, recognizing not only the topic of swearing as one of interest outside of academia, but also the importance of non-expert feedback for conducting research that is relevant, useful, and accountable. Since 2014, the network has been without financing, and the network’s regularly run symposia have instead been supported via continuous application to research foundations within the Nordic countries. SwiSca symposia are free of charge for participating researchers as well as audience members; in past years, funding has been secured for invited speakers, meals for presenters, and travel and/or accommodation costs for early-career scholars. This application is for partial financial support for the 8th SwiSca symposium, in the form of a joint symposium of SwiSca and CRAP. As a collaborative event, the 8th SwiSca symposium marks the first time the event will take place in a non-Nordic country. In this way, the SwiSca network can increase its visibility and further assert the Nordic region and Nordic scholars as central to swearing research. The networks’ joint co-organization of the symposium allows the experienced SwiSca network members to support the CRAP network in this debut network activity.

CRAP and SwiSca Joint Symposium (8th SwiSca Symposium)

The Joint CRAP and SwiSca symposium (8th SwiSca symposium) will take place 19-20 June 2023, at Keele University, England. Representing both the CRAP and SwiSca networks is the on-site co-organizer Richard Stephens, who was the keynote lecturer of the 6th SwiSca symposium at Södertörn University, May 2019. The organising committee comprises Richard, Olly Robertson as representative for the CRAP network, and Kristy Beers Fägersten as representative for the SwiSca netwrk. Kristy was organizer of the 6th SwiSca symposium at Södertörn University (Sweden, 2019), and co-organizer of the 7th SwiSca symposium at the Árni Magnússon Institute (Iceland, 2021). The keynote lecturer for the joint symposium is confirmed as Tony McEnery, renowned swearing researcher and Distinguished Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Lancaster University. A number of network members have already committed to presenting at the symposium, but an open call for papers will also be publicized in January 2023. The program will then be finalized by 28 February, 2023. Following the model of previous installments, the program for the joint CRAP / 8th SwiSca symposium will encompass two days and feature up to twenty papers in addition to a workshop and the keynote address. As in previous years, the 8th SwiSca symposium will also end with a network member meeting, where publication plans, research collaboration, and the next symposium are discussed. The joint symposium language is English; the SwiSca network member meetings are run in English and any Scandinavian language.