Performances of shamelessness and mechanisms of shaming define our contemporary world. Yet not so long ago, confessions of supposedly shameful activities were accompanied by a sense of glee. Enjoying rom-coms, reality TV, or fast food was framed as a „guilty pleasure“ – and reflexively dismissed as trivial and self-explanatory. However, closer inspection reveals guilty pleasures to be a complex and contradictory discursive phenomenon. The workshop “Confessions of Bad Taste” sets out to investigate guilty pleasures as a specific speech act. What is at stake in the public performance of guilty pleasures? Where, exactly, does the desire to confess one’s own guilty pleasures come from? And why do we take such delight in doing this?
Please find the full call here.
The workshop is organized as part of the research project „Towards a Genealogy of Guilty Pleasures: Performing Reflexive Consumption“ based at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities Essen (KWI) and the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB). It is funded by the VolkswagenStiftung under the funding initiative „Open Up – New Research Spaces for the Humanities and Cultural Studies“. Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered.
Format: max. 20-minute presentation + 25-minute discussion, Language: English
Submission guidelines: Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words and a short biography to paul.buckermann@kwi-nrw.de by October 15, 2026
Organizing team: Dr. Paul Buckermann (KWI), Dr. Morten Paul (RUB), Dr. Roxanne Phillips (KWI)
