Call for Papers: CONFLICT IN MEMORY
War, conflicts and transitions have always played a significant role in
defining communal identity, often with reference to events that happened
centuries ago. The role of passing on collective memories of these types
of events has become even more complex in a globalizing world, where new
configurations of cosmopolitan memories challenge more locally and
nationally based memories. The many aspects of societies' remembering
and forgetting call for interdisciplinary cooperation. This conference
brings together the fields of history, psychology, literature, and
cultural studies and presents new research on how memories of war,
conflict and transition are passed on from generation to generation and
how these processes transform and shape identities.
CONFIRMED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
Balthazar Garzon (investigative judge, Madrid)
Alistair Thomson (Monash University, Melbourne)
Andreas Huyssen (Columbia University)
James Wertsch (Washington University, St. Louis)
Dorthe Berntsen (Aarhus University)
Daniel Levy (Stony Brook University)
Anna Bull (University of Bath)
Luisa Passserini (University of Torino)
Tom Dunne (University College Cork)
Willliam Hirst (New School of Social Sciences, New York)
_WORKSHOP THEMES:_
- Negotiating National and Cosmopolitan Memories
- Psychological Approaches to Interpersonal and Intergenerational
Remembering
- Narrative Templates in Representations of Conflict and Civil Warfare
- Memory, Identity and Social Cohesion: Commemoration and
Intergenerational Memory of War, Conflict and
PURPOSES AND IDEAS OF THE WORKSHOPS:
NEGOTIATING NATIONAL AND COSMOPOLITAN MEMORIES
_Organised by Stefan Iversen and Mads Rosendahl Thomsen _(contact: Mads
Rosendahl Thomsen litmrt@hum.au.dk [1])
This section explores how cosmopolitanism has become an important topic
in the study of identity formation and the changes of memories in an
increasingly globalized world. The keynotes will address the Holocaust
as a transnational object of memory that has had a profound influence on
memory politics in terms of lawmaking, commemorative gestures and in
educating new generations. The section consists of the following three
sessions:
* Transformed places
* Politics of memory
* Clashing memories
PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO INTERPERSONAL AND INTERGENERATIONAL
REMEMBERING
_Organised by Annette Bohn, Celia Harris, and Jonathan Koppel _(contact:
Annette Bohn - anetboh@psy.au.dk [2])
This workshop will cover a broad range of topics concerned with social
and cultural issues in memory, from collaborative memories in couples to
national survey studies on memories for important public events,_ _to
the way that memories of traumatic events (personal and public) inform,
and are informed by, one's personal and social identity. The workshop
will be organised in three sessions addressing the following topics:
* Collective remembering and forgetting in small groups
* Memories of transitions: important personal and national events
* Trauma, identity and memory
NARRATIVE TEMPLATES IN REPRESENTATIONS OF CONFLICT AND CIVIL WARFARE
_Organised by Hans Lauge Hansen, Francesco Caviglia, Leonardo Cecchini
_(contact: Leonardo Cecchini - leonardo.c@hum.au.dk [3])
This workshop explores the role of narrative discourse in the
intergenerational memory processes of conflict and civil warfare. The
concept of narrative discourse is to be understood in its broadest sense
as fictional and non-fictional representations and all the hybrid genres
in between, based on linguistic, visual and corporal/physical
expressions. "Conflict and civil warfare" refers to a broad range of
historical events which affected individuals and groups within the same
national community, like the Nazi suppression of the German opposition
in the thirties, the Spanish Civil, War, Stalinism in USSR, political
violence in the '60s and '70s, etc. What kind of social processes are
required to convert communicative memory into cultural memory, what is
the role of narrative in these processes, which are the generic
templates employed and what is the social impact of these
representations?
MEMORY, IDENTITY AND SOCIAL COHESION: COMMEMORATION AND
INTERGENERATIONAL MEMORY OF WAR, CONFLICT AND CRISIS
_Organised by Michael Böss _(contact: Michael Böss - engmb@hum.au.dk
[4])
In _Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (_1994), the
American historian John Gillis suggested a typology of commemorations
based on three periods: a pre-national, a national and a post-national
period. During the pre-national period, commemorations were either local
or universal, and the elites and the masses tended not to share
commemorative rites. The subsequent 'national' cult of commemoration
served to unite people within territorial nation-states. This implied a
degree of democratisation of official commemorative events and
monuments. In the third period, there would not be a total demise, but a
weakening of national commemoration. Gillis also predicted that we might
be returning to the medieval pattern: Commemorations would become more
local and more universal ('global'). He also believed, however, that in
order for societies to cohere, there would be a need for public
commemoration. Without the identifications that commemorations help
create, citizens would find it difficult to interact and cooperate. -
This workshops invites papers that address both empirical cases and
theoretical cases these issues with special reference to commemorations
and memories of war, conflict and crisis.
ORGANISER: Prof Michael Böss, Director of MatchPoints Seminar -
engmb@hum.au.dk [5]
ORGANISING COMMITTEE: Annette Bohn, Hans Lauge Hansen, Francesco
Caviglia, Leonardo Cecchini, Stefan Iversen and Mads Rosendahl Thomsen
DEADLINES FOR PROPOSALS: January 15, 2012
CONFERENCE FEE: 150 EUR
For FURTHER INFORMATION, see
CONFERENCE VENUE: Aarhus University, Søauditorierne, Bartholins Allé
3, 8000 Aarhus.
_ABOUT MATCHPOINTS SEMINAR:_
_The purpose of a MatchPoints Seminar is to create dialogue between
Aarhus University and the surrounding society concerning subjects of
wider societal interest. Therefore the seminars will be open to the
public. Moreover, it is characteristic of a MatchPoints seminar that the
speakers at these seminars rank among the most highly esteemed national
and international figures in the field and subject that the seminar is
focused on._
--------------------------------
Mads Rosendahl Thomsen
Associate Professor in Comparative Literature, PhD
Department of Aesthetics and Communication
Aarhus University
Langelandsgade 139
DK - 8000 Aarhus C
E-mail: litmrt@hum.au.dk [6]
Phone: +45 8942 1838 / +45 3114 1419 (mobile)
Personal web-page: http://person.au.dk/en/litmrt@hum.au.dk [7]
Network for Cultural Memory Studies: memory.au.dk/en/
Links:
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[1] mailto:litmrt@hum.au.dk
[2] mailto:anetboh@psy.au.dk
[3] mailto:leonardo.c@hum.au.dk
[4] mailto:engmb@hum.au.dk
[5] mailto:engmb@hum.au.dk
[6] mailto:litmrt@hum.au.dk
[7] http://person.au.dk/en/litmrt@hum.au.dk
