Thank you, Marie Arleth Skov. You have been such a great chair, at this, our first-ever conference.
Now, my final words.
The coronavirus pandemic has disastrous consequences. Millions of people dying and becoming gravely ill worldwide. Including people in or on the periphery of punk bands. Punk concerts are postponed.
However, some clouds have silver linings. The dark lethal cloud of COVID-19 did not make it impossible to attend conferences on the internet; without having to board aeroplanes to England, Indonesia or elsewhere.
The Punk Girl Diaries site in England mentioned the Punk Scholars Network. This inspired two people who in 1979 had founded Dutch punk band Cheap ‘n’ Nasty to attend the 2020 PSN conference. Especially the Indonesia day of that conference; thank you, Fahkran Ramadan! The conference inspired the Dutch participants, me, and Terry, the woman without whom I would never ever have been able to start a band in 1979, to found PSN the Netherlands in early 2021.
Founding it jointly with Michael Kopijn of the site bacteria.nl. This website has many resources for studying punk, 20th or 21st century, worldwide or Dutch.
Not all resources in the Netherlands on punk are at bacteria.nl yet. Eg, the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam has many fanzines which are not yet accessible online. Fortunately, we found out that a punk woman works at that institute. We are very happy to include Andrea Gálová in our team.
Dr Anita Raghunath of the VU University in Amsterdam, a PSN veteran, was one of the first to join. Where would this webinar have been without her? Thanks also to all others who joined! Thanks to all speakers of today. Thanks, Marcel, thank Yorgos! Thanks, Minja for your film! Thanks to Mike Dines! Being a historian, the past interests me. But the people who made this webinar are living proof that punk, and studying punk, do not only have a past. They have a present. They have a future.
We feel sad that the pandemic made it impossible to have our conference as planned originally. With four live bands. And with as main theme women in punk. We had to change things all the time. But as the Japanese Shonen Knife women, playing since 1981, sing: ‘You know I’m a punky girl. I never say die. And no one can stop me!’.
And the majority female PSN the Netherlands team measured up to the Shonen Knife standard. They worked hard and still managed to have a good webinar today.
And in spring 2022, we plan to have a face-to-face-conference in OCCII in Amsterdam. With as sole subject Women in punk.
With four bands, all including women. With researchers from abroad and from the Netherlands. With Helen Reddington interviewing four waves, 1977 to 2021, of Dutch punk women.
Academic study of punk in the Netherlands still has to catch up with study elsewhere, like by Helen Reddington and Laura Way in the UK. It has to catch up on the role of women; and in general.
On punkscholarsnetwork.com, you can find information on the next days of the international Punk Scholars Network conference this week.
Tomorrow, there will be North America. On 7 December Indonesia. There will also be Brazil and Iberia. And on 10 and 11 December France.
Thank you!
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