Call for papers
Newcastle University, UK. September 11th, 2025.
We would like to invite proposals for short, 15-minute papers for an upcoming in-person workshop on night work since 1900 at Newcastle University (UK).
The aim of this workshop is to bring together interdisciplinary thinking about working at night in a variety of period, contexts, and disciplinary perspectives. We will ask: What can the critical interrogation of night work can tell us about categories of class, gender and race? Who is doing night work in different period? How did medical professionals and scientists interpret the physical and psychological costs of night work in the 20th century? What coping mechanisms do contemporary might shift workers use to manage the physical and mental demands of night labour?
Today, around 8.7 million people in the UK work night shifts. While this work is largely unseen, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the centrality of these essential workers. Cleaners, nurses, doctors, policeman, truck drivers, and factory workers all make up a work force who keep the modern 24/7 economy running by night. In recent years, new research has demonstrated that night working has significant negative health effects. While people have always worked at night, the phenomenon of night work and shift work accelerated rapidly in the years following the First World War. The expansion of the capitalist economy into the realm of the night became normalized in the early twentieth century and necessitated by industrial wars. The health and psychological complications of working at night became an increasing focus for doctors and scientists in the 1970s, particularly in light of the development of chronobiology. Nevertheless, working at night remains a marginalized subject in history, sociology and geography.
Topics might include:
• Labour histories of the night
• Medical and scientific perspectives on sleep and night work
• Environmental approaches to the night-time work place
• Night work and its physical and psychological effects
• Class, gender and racial hierarchies of working at night
• Night work and the contemporary gig economy
• Night shifts and mothering/caring
Keynote Speakers: Dr Arun Kumar, Nottingham University; Dr Lucie Dušková, Charles University, Prague
Note that the call is for ‘working papers’ – these will be short, 15-minute interventions that can be works in progress or even plans for future work. We welcome participation from early career scholars as well as postgraduate students. The workshop is free and catering on the day will be be provided. Unfortunately there are not funds to cover travel and accommodation costs for speakers.
Please send abstracts of 150 words as well as a short biography to Dr Kristin Hussey, Lecturer in Environmental History, Newcastle University by 21st July: Kristin.hussey@newcastle.ac.uk.
We would like to invite proposals for short, 15-minute papers for an upcoming in-person workshop on night work since 1900 at Newcastle University (UK).
The aim of this workshop is to bring together interdisciplinary thinking about working at night in a variety of period, contexts, and disciplinary perspectives. We will ask: What can the critical interrogation of night work can tell us about categories of class, gender and race? Who is doing night work in different period? How did medical professionals and scientists interpret the physical and psychological costs of night work in the 20th century? What coping mechanisms do contemporary might shift workers use to manage the physical and mental demands of night labour?
Today, around 8.7 million people in the UK work night shifts. While this work is largely unseen, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the centrality of these essential workers. Cleaners, nurses, doctors, policeman, truck drivers, and factory workers all make up a work force who keep the modern 24/7 economy running by night. In recent years, new research has demonstrated that night working has significant negative health effects. While people have always worked at night, the phenomenon of night work and shift work accelerated rapidly in the years following the First World War. The expansion of the capitalist economy into the realm of the night became normalized in the early twentieth century and necessitated by industrial wars. The health and psychological complications of working at night became an increasing focus for doctors and scientists in the 1970s, particularly in light of the development of chronobiology. Nevertheless, working at night remains a marginalized subject in history, sociology and geography.
Topics might include:
• Labour histories of the night
• Medical and scientific perspectives on sleep and night work
• Environmental approaches to the night-time work place
• Night work and its physical and psychological effects
• Class, gender and racial hierarchies of working at night
• Night work and the contemporary gig economy
• Night shifts and mothering/caring
Keynote Speakers: Dr Arun Kumar, Nottingham University; Dr Lucie Dušková, Charles University, Prague
Note that the call is for ‘working papers’ – these will be short, 15-minute interventions that can be works in progress or even plans for future work. We welcome participation from early career scholars as well as postgraduate students. The workshop is free and catering on the day will be be provided. Unfortunately there are not funds to cover travel and accommodation costs for speakers.
Please send abstracts of 150 words as well as a short biography to Dr Kristin Hussey, Lecturer in Environmental History, Newcastle University by 21st July: Kristin.hussey@newcastle.ac.uk.
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