Here we go again…the second Punk Scholars Podcast live taping…this time, we’re LIVE AT LEEDS from the 12th Annual Punk Scholars Network Conference 2025 at the University of Leeds. In a roundtable format, punk scholars from your familiar PSP co-hosting crew– Jessica Schwartz, Paul Hollins, Mike Dines, and Russ Bestley–spotlight conference organizer, Stan Erraught, and speak on the importance of the PSP in the context of the annual PSN conference gathering.
Note: For context, given the occasional reference to Caroline, this taping was preceded by a six-minute clip of Caroline Collett's book reading from the previous episode of the Punk Scholars Podcast (PSP S2 E6). We encourage you to listen to that episode (and all others) as well.
Guest Bio and Conference Abstract
Stan Erraught is a lecturer in Music Business and Popular Music in the School of Music at the University of Leeds. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from University College, Dublin. He has published a monograph on Music, Value, and Utopia: Nostalgia for an Age Yet to Come (Rowman and Littlefield 2018) and his article, ‘The Country and Irish Problem’ was published in Popular Music in 2021. Rebel Notes: Popular Music and Conflict will be published in early 2025 by Beyond the Pale. He is currently writing a book on Popular Music, Modernity and Anxiety: Ireland 1950-1990.
PUNK: PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE.
The Punk Scholars Network 12th Annual Conference and Postgraduate Symposium was hosted by the School of Music at the University of Leeds on the 12th & 13th December 2025. The theme of the conference was Punk: Past, Present, Future.
As punk approaches its half century - if we take the year of the first Ramones album and the first Sex Pistols single as year zero - this year's Punk Scholars Network conference explored how a cultural form that rejoiced in the rejection of the past, and a joyful skepticism towards any kind of future, can deal with its own history, its fragility in the face of age, and the sustainability of the form itself as it passes from first person memory into history. Papers were presented on topics that examined the past in light of these concerns, as well as those that interrogated the present and inquired what 'punk' is now and the future of a form that remains resilient and innovative.
We’d love to hear from you and are soliciting episode ideas and guests. Contact us at: punkscholarspodcast@gmail.com.
The PSP theme music is excerpted from “Crows” by Watch You Drown. All rights reserved.
Season 2, Episode 7, was recorded on December 11, 2025, on Zoom with roundtable participants in Leeds, UK, and in the US. Jessica Schwartz, Paul Hollins, Mike Dines, and Russ Bestley co-hosted and co-produced this episode. Paul Hollins and Jessica Schwartz edited the transcript, which is available here. Jessica Schwartz edited the audio.
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