Conference Call for Papers

Kingston University, UK, 28th and 29th October 2025

Terminal Futures: JG Ballard In The 21st Century

Kingston School of Art, Kingston University

#Kingston2025

October 28th and 29th 2025

Call For Papers

2025 is an apt time to celebrate the work of the writer and essayist JG Ballard as it sees 50 years since the publication of one of his seminal novels High Rise (1975)  as well as nearly 20 years since his final novel Kingdom Come (2006)  (a novel whose dystopian setting, a shopping centre, was based on Kingston-Upon-Thames own Bentall Centre). Ballard, of course is indelibly associated with Kingston and its surrounding areas having lived for 50 years in nearby Shepperton. Hence this conference is also designed to segue with the current #Kingston2025 heritage festivities which celebrate Kingston’s rich social and cultural  history from the crowing of Athelstan 1100 years ago to the present day.

This interdisciplinary conference, which is organised through (and with thanks to) the Visual and Material Cultures Research Centre, Kingston School of Art, which will take place over two days and  invites researchers and creative practitioners who are engaged with Ballard’s work and legacy; its seeks to excavate Ballard’s association with Kingston and its surrounding (Psycho)geographies (Heathrow, the M25, the Westway Shepperton and its studios,  Brooklands racetrack etc)  and architectures; to discuss Ballard’s work in all its forms (novels, short stories, essays, journalism and more) and his legacy across a diverse range of  the arts and media cultures.

The conference will aim to consider Ballard’s legacy in the 21 century especially in the creative arts and in architecture. To that end it will take place in Kingston University’s very own Ballardian “High Rise” – our RIBA  and Mies Van der Rohe award winning Town House building. It not only invites papers of 15-20 minutes but also the work of creative practitioners (artists, writers, filmmakers) whose own work engages with and exhibits Ballard’s legacy

The conference also aims to celebrate 50 years of ‘High Rise’ with a dedicated panel discussion around the novel.Presentations may engage with (but of course are not limited to) the following:-

• Ballard and the geographies of greater London
• Ballard and the Mass Media
• Ballard, Capitalism and Consumerism
• Ballard in the Archive: the Ballard papers and the British Library
• Ballard, Architecture and the built environment
• Psychogeography and Hauntology
• Ballard, cars and crashes
• Dystopias and Ecotopias
• Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis and Apocalypse
• Ballard, Internment and the second world war
• Ballard and science
• Autobiography in Ballard
• Flight
• 50 years of High Rise
• 20 years of Kingdom Come
• Ballard and Adaptation
• Ballard in the Jungle / Post-colonialism
• Ballard’s 21st century legacy
• Ballard and Film/Ballard on film
• Ballard and Music
• Ballard’s place in 20th century literature
• Ballard, photography, art and design
• Ballard’s abandoned projects

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to both Dr Matt Melia (m.melia@kingston.ac.uk) and Dr Chris Horrocks (c.horrocks@kingston.ac.uk)  by no later than August 15th 2025.