91������

The workshop “On the night shift: New perspectives on night work since 1900” was held on Thursday, September 11^th, 2025 at Newcastle University in Newcastle-upon-Thyne, United Kingdom. The event was organized with Newcastle University’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and hosted by Dr. Kristin Hussey, a historian of medicine in the British Empire and a lecturer of environmental history whose current research centers sleep. Hussey invited sleep scholars within an international network to broach underrepresented forms of night labor in the 20^th and 21^st century, and presenters came from various disciplines and institutions in England, France, the Czech Republic, and Canada. The attendees numbered around 30 and mostly consisted of local scholars, university faculty, students, and, funnily, two university administrators from Newcastle, Australia. I myself was invited on behalf of 91������’s team to present our reflections on affective nighttime labor in commercial bathhouses.

The single-day workshop was divided into two themed panels and two keynote presentations interspersed with discussions. The event highlighted the predominance of civic well-being and healthcare in night labor scholarship. 

The morning panel, themed “Working in the Nighttime Hospital,” featured presentations touching on sleep equity and working conditions for healthcare workers in France and the UK. Hussey and Dr. Alison Steven (Chair of research at Northumbria University, Newcastle) both touched on a curious consequence of night hospital work, wherein fatigue and other conditions of night within the sterile environment induced heightened and sometimes hallucinated sensory experiences that verged on spiritual. In Hussey’s example, night nurses used personal sensory mappings of the hospital to inform their administration of care beyond prescribed bureaucratic procedures.¹

The second panel on “Conflict, Gender, and the Nighttime City” featured presentations from Dr. Robert Dale (Senior lecturer in Russian history at Newcastle University) on Soviet nighttime fire watchmen during the Second World War, Dr. Robert Shaw (Senior lecturer in Geography at Newcastle University) on masculinized public-facing night work, and my own presentation on affective nighttime labor in commercial bathhouses. On behalf of 91������ and Dr. Ipek Türeli, I presented the working paper titled “Spatial Substitutions: Bathhouses, Affective Labor, and the Biopolitical Reconfiguration of Nightlife” which examined contemporary nighttime bathhouse use, specifically comparing queer bathhouses and luxury heterosocial spas modelled after saunas or bathhouses. Whereas queer bathhouses are designed as sites of sexual exploration often mimicking hedonistic nightlife venues, contemporary saunas with extended nighttime hours cultivate polite restorative behaviour and mimic domestic sleep environments. Night labor no longer simply entails paid labor performed at night in hospitals, factories, or civic posts. Rather, the efforts and resources invested in optimizing sleep, the intentional marketing of night as a time for wellness rather than fun, represent the emergence of a new form of night labor servicing the individual (white collar) worker themself and restoring their potential for later, daytime labor. 

During discussions afterwards, Elizabeth Turk (Research fellow at Newcastle University) and Robert Dale separately brought up opposing Soviet bathing institutions that bore quite a parallel to our contemporary subjects: Turk suggested to investigate state-sanctioned Soviet-era sanatoria and medical spa resorts while Dale offered the more urban and debauched Russian banyas riddled with alcohol consumption. Their suggestions reveal an earlier precedent of popular bathing typologies divided between biopolitical and pleasure-seeking objectives.

Most notably, keynote speaker Dr. Arun Kumar (Assistant professor of British Imperial, Colonial, and Post-Colonial History at the University of Nottingham) delivered an excellent presentation on sleep violence directed towards domestic servants in Colonial India.² British colonists ill-adapted to the subcontinent’s tropical climate employed “pankha wallahs” or domestic servants dedicated to the perpetual, manual operation of large ceiling fans in their homes. Divided into day and night shifts, the night shift servants especially suffered when they fell asleep on duty causing abusive employers roused by the heat and vindictive from the perceived superior import of their ability to perform daytime administrative duties. Good sleep quality for the master was predicated on poor sleep quality for the servant and vice versa.

While modern technology has eliminated the demand of such intimate, involved forms of nighttime domestic labor, the hierarchy of the right to sleep remains as evidenced by the reiteration of sleep deprivation and night worker fatigue across all presentations. Physically and spiritually demanding night labor practices continue to persist in the 21^st century despite institutional recognition of its deleterious effects as Dr. Alison Steven highlighted in her proposal for fatigue risk management in healthcare settings.³ Rather than investing in institutional reform, a new industry figuring (selling) night as a time to actively improve sleep quality and restore optimal bodily performance has emerged parallel for those who can afford it.

“On the Night Shift” workshop was the first academic conference I attended as a presenter. I am immensely grateful for the opportunity which would not have been possible without support from Professor Ipek Türeli and the SSHRC Partnership on Quality in the Built Environment Grant #895-2022-1003. The suggestions offered by scholars Beth Turk and Robert Dale have helped refine the paper’s objectives, and the kindness and support extended to me by all the attendees were a great comfort in lieu of some first-timer blunders.