How did you become involved in the Punk Scholars Network? During the first year of my PhD, my supervisor forwarded me the call for papers for the fourth Punk Scholars Network Conference at the University of Bolton which I applied for and presented at in 2017. I was still trying to figure out what it meant to research ‘punk’ and hoped that this event would give me a broader sense around the issue (Bolton itself was an experience in this process with its grey atmosphere, it also was my first time finding a Bible in a random accommodation). Meeting other postgrads and realizing there is an academic community who are interested in punk was so helpful; I remember feeling excited before each panel (specifically seeing topics such as Dutch queer zines and the influence of punk on drag culture). The PSN committee was looking for someone to review the conference for the Punk & Post-Punk journal, I volunteered for the task and I think that was when I met Matt Grimes. After the panel during which I presented my paper titled ‘Traces of Punk Aesthetics in Cinema’, Matt informed me of the articles around the subject of ‘punk cinema’ that were published before in the P&PP journal. This quick and encouraging conversation motivated me to continue being in touch with the network which later on spontaneously happened in Porto during the Keep it Simple, Make it Fast conference in 2018 when I encountered Matt, Pete Dale and Kirsty Lohman from PSN. It feels like my involvement in the network was a gradual process through conversations since Bolton, but I guess it became ‘official’ when I took on the postgraduate representative role after I joined the open meeting during the fifth PSN Conference in December 2018.
Why do you feel it's important that a network for those involved in the study of punk/punks exists? I think the increasing number of written and audio-visual resources on the punk subcultures from different time-places indicate that the effects of punk go beyond the boxed thinking of punk as an outdated subculture. The belief that punk belongs to a specific Anglo-Saxon past seems very reductive in terms of how to think about a subcultural way of creating music and art in general outside of the industry. The specifics of subcultures and their roots are important, but so are the aesthetic and practical resonances in spaces that are not officially deemed ‘punk’. There are still so many overlooked aspects in transhistorical influences of punk and the social dynamics within the taken-for-granted subcultural histories. The intersections of queer and feminist aesthetics and punk subcultures are more and more becoming visible and that is where I find myself as a researcher. The various ways we experience the ideas and practices around punk call for diversity and it seems important to me to form a sort of academic collectivity to reflect the DIY ethics that are intrinsic to the subculture in order to become more inclusive and effective in change. Academic research is mostly very isolating, especially considering the increasing precarity that surrounds early career researchers. Networks, such as PSN, help researchers to remain connected and give an opportunity to do things collectively and reflect on the limits of the research practice itself.
Tell us a bit about your own (punk) research? My MA thesis was on the French film Baise Moi (2000). I argued that it rejected gendered representations of sexuality on screen through reworking genre conventions. I focused on the film in terms of gender and sexuality, but it was obvious that there was a lot to say about its low-budget filmmaking and aesthetics which then informed my PhD project later. My PhD research now is a combination of historical and aesthetic investigations of the relationship between subcultures and cinema, looking at certain independent/avant-garde/experimental sections of European and American cinema from the early 70s on in relation to their low-budget, collective and DIY backgrounds. It builds on a combination of aspects of queer methodologies and critical theories that focus on the process of identification in cinema.
I organized a postgraduate symposium as part of the PSN event series in September 2019 at NUI Galway, titled ‘Researching Subcultures and Aesthetics Postgraduate Symposium: Alternative Voices in Academia’, with the aim of bringing postgraduates and early career researchers together and the written outcome of this event can be found in ASAP/J Open Access Platform over the autumn of 2020.
What is your connection to punk/background in punk? (I am from Izmir) I started learning drums when I was about 13 and got into metal, mostly thrash and progressive through my cousins. I was lucky to meet other amazing girls during my adolescence who were also obsessed with music (from black metal to Nirvana) and part of the local music scene. Then I really got into post-punk in general before I even heard the bands from the ‘initial’ punk movement. We were influencing each other and formed a doom metal band which eventually turned into a riot grrrl band when we all moved to Istanbul for university. Later, after I finished my MA at the University College Cork, Ireland in 2013, I moved back to Istanbul and went back to playing drums, became the drummer in various bands. My involvement in the underground music scene in Istanbul informed my approach to music in general and probably affected how I think about research as well: self-expression is one way or another under the influence of various cultural encounters and self-reflexivity is something I think about all the time. How restrictions and exclusions we experience can turn into aesthetic outbursts in different forms of collectivity and art continues to motivate me. I suppose I have a motivational connection to punk in terms of just doing it yourself when you know nobody is going to do it for you.
Temmuz is a PhD student at the Huston School of Film and Digital Media, National University of Ireland, Galway. Her research investigates avant-garde cinema, punk subcultures and counterculture in postmodernism through queer theory. She is a member of Punk Scholars Network and has presented and published on the interactions of queer theory, punk and cinema in a number of venues, most recently in the Punk and Post-Punk Journal and Journal of European Popular Culture. @temmuzsr