Archive Page of Transcultural Memory Conference and Launch of CCM
Archive Page of COLD WAR CITIES Study Day
Archive Page of SAS Summer School 2010 MEMORY, EMPIRE & TECHNOLOGY

If you would like to advertise your event on this website please email me at katia.pizzil@sas.ac.uk.

Jan - Dec 2011

Jan - Dec 2012

January 2011

TALK: Isabel Gil, "Framed by Laughter: Nazi Melodrama and Portuguese Film during WWII"
Thursday 27th January 2011 at 5pm
Room STB7, Stewart House Basement, University of London
more info

CFP: The Second World War, Popular Culture and Cultural Memory
University of Brighton, UK
13-15 July 2011
Keynote Speakers:Professor Jim Aulich (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK), Professor Susan R. Grayzel (University of Mississippi, USA), Professor Gill Plain (University of St Andrews, UK)
Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to:
ww2conference@brighton.ac.uk
Deadline:  31 January 2011

CONF: Concentrationary Imaginaries/ Imaginaries of Violence in Contemporary Cultures and Cultural Forms
Keynote Speakers: Adriana Cavarero (Verona), Paul Gilroy (LSE), Paul Virilio (TBC)
Date:  January 2011
To be held at the University of Leeds
Deadline for Submissions: 1 August 2010.

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February 2011

EXHIBITION: Rebecca Feiner, "Memory"
St John on Bethnal Green, 200 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2
Preview: 3rd February, 6-9pm
Dates: 3rd February to 3rd March


CFP: From the Iron Curtain to the Schengen Area: Bordering Communist and Postcommunist Europe
Date: 28-30 September 2011
Conference organizers: Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for European History and Public Spheres (LBI-EHP), http://ehp.lbg.ac.at;
Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), www.iwm.at
Historical Commission, Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) ww.oeaw.ac.at/histkomm
Location: Vienna, Austria
Deadline for proposals: 1 Feb 2011


SEM: Cultural Memory Seminar: Memory and Education
Saturday 19 February, 11:00 - 16:00
The Court Room (Senate House, First Floor)

Speakers: Lucy Bond (Goldsmiths', London)
Andy Pearce (Holocaust Educational Trust)
Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway, London)
Contact: katia.pizzi@sas.ac.uk


SEM: 'Challenging dominant discourses of the past: 1968 and the value of oral history'
An interdisciplinary seminar on the value of oral history and its role in the deconstruction of dominant discourses of the past.
Wednesday 23 February 2011, 10am - 6pm
University of Warwick (Coventry, UK)
Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) seminar room, Milburn House

CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION: The Carnival of Death: Perceptions of Death in Europe and the Americas
An interdisciplinary conference & exhibiton organised by Maria-José Blanco and Ricarda Vidal, IGRS
Keynote speakers: Paul Preston, Laurie Lipton, Briony Campbell
The exhibition includes work by Colette Copeland, David Glyn, Erik and Rune Eriksson, Spiros Jacovides, Caroline Leaf, Laurie Lipton, Matt Rowe, Sarah Sparkes
24-26 Feb 2011
Venue: Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
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CFP: Youth Challenges Traditions? Reconsidering Changes in Austrian and British Society 1960-1989
Room 273 (Stewart House, Second floor)
Date: 2-3 June
Deadline for Submissions: 28 February
Organised by Bianca Zaininger and Martin Liebscher (IGRS)


March 2011

CONF: International Praxis Conference on Cultural Memory and Coexistence
Date: 18-20 March 2011
Venue: Fatih University, Istanbul
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 1 October 2010

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CFP: Memory and/in Practice
Date: 3-4 June 2011
Venue: University of Copenhagen
Organisers: Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory Danish Network for Memory Studies
Pogramme
Contact: memorypractice@gmail.com
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 28 March 2011


CFP:The Emotions in History, Memory and Storytelling Postgraduate Conference
June 29th, 2011 Falmer, University of Brighton, UK
Deadline for submissions: March 31st 2011
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/clhlwr/1-7-1-14

April 2011

CONF: "Commemoration and Contestation: The Uncertain Future of Memory Initiatives in Latin America"
SLAS 2011: University of St.Andrews,
8-10 April 2011
Deadline for Submissions: 1 December 2010

CONF: Cultures at War. Austria-Hungary 1914-1918
To be held at St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford,
13-15 April 2011
Deadline for Submissions: 14 March 2010.


CFP: Vampires: Myths of the Past and the Future
An interdisciplinary conference organised by Simon Bacon, The London Consortium in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory, Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London
Deadline for submissions: 30 April 2011
Conference dates: 2nd – 4th November 2011
Venue: Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London .

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May 2011

Monday 9 May, 6.00pm
Lecture and reading by Professor Carlo Ginzburg: "Our Words and Theirs. A Reflection on the Historian’s Craft Today."
The Chancellor's Hall (Senate House, First Floor)
Contact: katia.pizzi@sas.ac.uk


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June 2011

3 June
CFP: Historical Justice and Memory international conference
Melbourne, 14-17 February 2012
keynote speakers: Elazar Barkan, Steve J. Stern, and others
Deadline for Submissions: 3 June

3 June
CONF: Youth Challenges Traditions? Reconsidering Changes in Austrian and British Society 1960-1989
Room 273 (Stewart House, Second floor)
Deadline for Submissions: 28 February
Organised by Bianca Zaininger and Martin Liebscher (IGRS)


3-4 June 2011
SEM: Memory and/in Practice
Venue: University of Copenhagen
Organisers: Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory Danish Network for Memory Studies
Contact: memorypractice@gmail.com
Programme
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 28 March 2011


13 June
Cultural Memory Seminar: Professor Vjeran Pavlakovic (University of Rijeka), ‘Sites of Memory and the Politics of the Past in the Former Yugoslavia’
4-6pm, Room ST276, Stewart House, Second Floor.
The talk will highlight the most prominent contested histories of the 20th century in the Yugoslav successor states, with an emphasis of how each of the countries has dealt with the legacies of World War 2 and the wars of the 1990s through visual cultural memory (monuments, statues, public space) and commemorative culture.  Although the presentation will focus on Croatia since 1990, the divided cultural memories of the other former Yugoslav republics will also be discussed in this comparative analysis.

Friday 24 June, 6.00pm
CANCELLED Lecture and reading by Professor Alberto Cavaglion: "The House of Mirth: Jewish Italian Reflections"
Room 274/275 (Stewart House, Second floor)
Contact: katia.pizzi@sas.ac.uk

29 June
CONF: The Emotions in History, Memory and Storytelling
Postgraduate Conference
Falmer, University of Brighton, UK
Deadline for submissions: March 31st 2011
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/clhlwr/1-7-1-14

30th June - 1st July
CONF: MIGRATION ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES
Organized by Tendayi Bloom and Parvati Nair
Centre for the Study of Migration, Lock Keeper's Cottage, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS 2011
NB:There is no registration fee, but attendees will be expected to supply their own lunch.
contact: events@qmul.ac.uk
For further details, visit http://www.qmul.ac.uk/migration/
programme

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July 2011

CONF: The Second World War, Popular Culture and Cultural Memory
University of Brighton, UK
13-15 July 2011
Keynote Speakers:Professor Jim Aulich (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK), Professor Susan R. Grayzel (University of Mississippi, USA), Professor Gill Plain (University of St Andrews, UK)
Deadline:  31 January 2011

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August 2011


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September 2011

CONF: From the Iron Curtain to the Schengen Area: Bordering Communist and Postcommunist Europe
Date: 28-30 September 2011
Conference organizers: Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for European History and Public Spheres (LBI-EHP), http://ehp.lbg.ac.at;
Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), www.iwm.at
Historical Commission, Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) ww.oeaw.ac.at/histkomm
Location: Vienna, Austria
Deadline for proposals: 1 Feb 2011

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October 2011

CFP: Family Ties: Recollection and Representation
organised by Dr Sally Waterman and Dr Katia Pizzi
Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory
8-9 March 2012
Keynote speakers: Rosy Martin and Prof Marsha Meskimmon
Deadline for Submissions: 4 October
more info
contact: familytiesconference@gmail.com


12 October
Raphael Samuel History Centre Psychoanalysis and History Seminar: Angela Davies (Warwick), Anna Freud’s war nurseries
Bedford room G37, Senate House, South block, University of London
Conveners: Sally Alexander (Goldsmiths College), Barbara Taylor (UEL), Kate Hodgkin (UEL)
www.raphael-samuel.org.uk

13 October
SEM: What is oral history?
Oral History Network seminar series at Warwick University (UK),
2-4pm, Wolfson Research Exchange (seminar room 1), Warwick University Library.
Keynote: Dr. Anna Davin (History Workshop Journal) http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/ias/networks/oralhistory/octoberseminar/ The event is free and open to all, but we would appreciate it if you could register with us at: angela.davis@warwick.ac.uk and Andrea.Hajek@alumni.warwick.ac.uk


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November 2011

CONF: Vampires: Myths of the Past and the Future
An interdisciplinary conference organised by Simon Bacon, The London Consortium in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory, Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London
Deadline for submissions: 30 April 2011
Conference dates: 2nd – 4th November 2011
Venue: Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
Programme


9 November
Raphael Samuel History Centre Psychoanalysis and History Seminar: Barbara Taylor (UEL), Historical Subjectivity
Montague room G26, Senate House, South block, University of London
Conveners: Sally Alexander (Goldsmiths College), Barbara Taylor (UEL), Kate Hodgkin (UEL)
www.raphael-samuel.org.uk


CFP: War and Memory: artistic and cultural representations of individual, collective and national memories in twentieth-century Europe at war.
7-9 September 2012, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw.
Organised jointly by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Queen’s University of Belfast.
Keynote speakers: Norman Davies (tbc), Jay Winter, Barbara Szacka (tbc).
The deadline for sending your proposal will be 30th November 2011
Call for Papers

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December 2011

7 December
Raphael Samuel History Centre Psychoanalysis and History Seminar:
Sarah Chaney (UCL history of Medicine), "The single swallow does not make a summer": Psychological Approaches in Late Nineteenth-century Asylum Case Histories
Bedford room G37, Senate House, South block, University of London
Conveners: Sally Alexander (Goldsmiths College), Barbara Taylor (UEL), Kate Hodgkin (UEL)
www.raphael-samuel.org.uk

15-17 Dec.
CONF: (Trans)national subjects: Framing post-1989 Migration on the European Screen
An international conference hosted by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium).
Programme: http://www.transnationalsubjects.eu

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January 2012

CFP: Conflict in Memory: Interpersonal and Intergenerational Remembering of War, Conflict and Transition
An interdisciplinary conference
Aarhus University, Denmark
10 – 12 May 2012
Deadline for submissions: 15 January 2012

18 January
Raphael Samuel History Centre Psychoanalysis and History Seminar:
Marcia Pointon (Professor Emeritus History of Art, University of Manchester), 'Inversions: casts, masks and mortality’
Bedford room G37, Senate House, South block, University of London
Conveners: Sally Alexander (Goldsmiths College), Barbara Taylor (UEL), Kate Hodgkin (UEL)
www.raphael-samuel.org.uk


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February 2012

CONF: Historical Justice and Memory international conference
Melbourne, 14-17 February 2012
keynote speakers: Elazar Barkan, Steve J. Stern, and others
Deadline for Submissions: 3 June

29 February
Raphael Samuel History Centre Psychoanalysis and History Seminar:
Shaul Bar-Haim (Birkbeck), "Reading between the lines": regressive states as social indicators in 1950s Britain
Bedford room G37, Senate House, South block, University of London
Conveners: Sally Alexander (Goldsmiths College), Barbara Taylor (UEL), Kate Hodgkin (UEL)
www.raphael-samuel.org.uk

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March 2012

8-9 March
CONF: Family Ties: Recollection and Representation
organised by Dr Sally Waterman (independent artist) and Dr Katia Pizzi (IGRS)
Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory
Deadline for Submissions: 4 October 2011
call for papers
contact: familytiesconference@gmail.com

14 March
Raphael Samuel History Centre Psychoanalysis and History Seminar:
Emma Sutton (UCL History of Medicine), William James and the Varieties of Moral Medicine (title to be confirmed)
Bedford room G37, Senate House, South block, University of London
Conveners: Sally Alexander (Goldsmiths College), Barbara Taylor (UEL), Kate Hodgkin (UEL)
www.raphael-samuel.org.uk

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April 2012

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May 2012

9 May
Raphael Samuel History Centre Psychoanalysis and History Seminar:
Matthew Thomson (Warwick), Bowlbyism and the Postwar Settlement
Bedford room G37, Senate House, South block, University of London
Conveners: Sally Alexander (Goldsmiths College), Barbara Taylor (UEL), Kate Hodgkin (UEL)
www.raphael-samuel.org.uk

10 – 12 May 2012
CONF: Conflict in Memory: Interpersonal and Intergenerational Remembering of War, Conflict and Transition
An interdisciplinary conference
Aarhus University, Denmark
Deadline for submissions: 15 January 2012  

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June 2012

6 June
Raphael Samuel History Centre Psychoanalysis and History Seminar:
Emma Francis (Warwick), Psychoanalysis in Egypt: Victorian novels (tbc)
Bedford room G37, Senate House, South block, University of London
Conveners: Sally Alexander (Goldsmiths College), Barbara Taylor (UEL), Kate Hodgkin (UEL)
www.raphael-samuel.org.uk

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July 2012


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August 2012


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September 2012

7-9 September 2012
CONF: War and Memory: artistic and cultural representations of individual, collective and national memories in twentieth-century Europe at war.
Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw.
Organised jointly by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Queen’s University of Belfast.
Keynote speakers: Norman Davies (tbc), Jay Winter, Barbara Szacka (tbc).
The deadline for sending your proposal will be 30th November 2011


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October 2012

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November 2012

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December 2012

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January 2010

CONF: Before and Beyond Auschwitz: New conflicts and alternative routes among exclusion, identity and diversity
Date: 27-29 January 2010
Organised by Dipartimento di Scienze della Comunicazione – Via Armaroli 9 – 62100 Macerata and
Osservatorio di genere – Istituto Storico della Resistenza – Via Verdi 10 – 62100 Macerata

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February 2010

CONF: Transcultural Memory
Date: 4-6th February 2010
Jointly organised by Goldsmiths University of London and The Centre for the Study of Cultrual Memory.
This conference marks the inauguration of The Centre for the Study of Cultural Memory.
Venue: Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London

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March 2010

CFP: Cultures at War. Austria-Hungary 1914-1918
To be held at St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford,
13-15 April 2011
Deadline for Submissions: 14 March 2010.

CFP: The city: identity, exchange and esthetic territory - Latin America - Africa - Asia
June 22nd and 23rd, 2010 Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Room Vasari, Galerie Colbert, 2 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris (France) Symposium organized by the Association Instead !, in partnership with HiCSA (University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, France).
Deadline for Submissions: 15 March 2010.


CONF: ‘Gender, Agency and Violence: European Perspectives from Medieval Times to the Present Day’
Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Sexuality and Gender in Europe (CISSGE) Annual Conference
IGRS, London: 18th and 19th March 2010

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April 2010

CFP: PUBLIC LIVES, PRIVATE LIVES: NEW RESEARCH ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES
A Postgraduate Research Conference
Wednesday 2nd June 2010
Grand Parade, University of Brighton

The Second Annual Postgraduate Research Conference co-organised by the Centre for Research in Memory, Narrative and Histories, University of Brighton and the Centre for Life History and Life Writing, University of Sussex
 
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May 2010

CFP: Homelands - International Seminar
What happens when diasporas come ’home’? Invitation and call for papers to seminar hosted by Kultrans,
University of Oslo 3-4 June 2010
Deadline for Submissions: 15 May 2010.

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June 2010

CONF: PUBLIC LIVES, PRIVATE LIVES: NEW RESEARCH ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES
A Postgraduate Research Conference
Wednesday 2nd June 2010
Grand Parade, University of Brighton
The Second Annual Postgraduate Research Conference co-organised by the Centre for Research in Memory, Narrative and Histories, University of Brighton and the Centre for Life History and Life Writing, University of Sussex

SEM: Homelands - International Seminar
What happens when diasporas come ’home’? Invitation and call for papers to seminar hosted by Kultrans,
University of Oslo 3-4 June 2010
deadline for submissions: 15 May 2010

CONF “Echoes of the Georgian and Victorian societies in contemporary British arts”.
Conference organised by the association One Piece at a Time (GEIAB) and the université Paris-Diderot (English studies),
5th of June 2010 in Paris.

SYMP: Memory Today
Download flyer
Friday 11 June, 4.30-6.30
Room  274/5, 2nd Floor,  Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, London WC1
The Raphael Samuel History Centre  invites you to the next in its series of ‘Conversations and Disputations’  events: Memory Today: A symposium  to celebrate the publication of  Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates, eds Susannah Radstone and Bill  Schwarz (Fordham University
Press)
Speakers include: Shahidha Bari (Queen  Mary), Rick Crownshaw (Goldsmiths),
Graham Dawson (Brighton), Stephan Feuchtwang (LSE), Lynne Segal (Birkbeck).
Chair: Kate Hodgkin (UEL).
To be followed by a book  launch with Mary Chamberlain in the Common Room, Institute  of Historical Research, University of London, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1

CFP The Carnival of Death:
Perceptions of Death in Europe and the Americas
An interdisciplinary conference organised by Maria-José Blanco and Ricarda Vidal, IGRS
Deadline for submissions: 21 June 2010
Conference dates: 24-26 Feb 2011
Venue: Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

CONF: The city: identity, exchange and esthetic territory - Latin America - Africa - Asia
June 22nd and 23rd, 2010
Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Room Vasari, Galerie Colbert, 2 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris (France) Symposium organized by the Association Instead !, in partnership with HiCSA (University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, France).

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July 2010

CFP ARTICLES: How long does it take? When, why and how do democratic societies remember and address historical injustices perpetrated against minorities?
Deadline for submissions of abstracts: 5 July 2010

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August 2010

CFP: Concentrationary Imaginaries/ Imaginaries of Violence in Contemporary Cultures and Cultural Forms

Keynote Speakers: Adriana Cavarero (Verona), Paul Gilroy (LSE), Paul Virilio (TBC)
Date:  January 2011
To be held at the University of Leeds
Deadline for Submissions: 1 August 2010.

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September 2010

CONF: Art Histories, Cultural Studies and the Cold War
Date: Friday 24 September 2010
Keynote Speaker: Miranda Carter (author of Anthony Blunt: His Lives, 2001)
"Study Day: Cold War Cities
Date: Saturday 25 September 2010
Deadline for submission for both conference and study day: 24 February 2010
Venue: Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London

CFP: ‘Between the past and the future: Challenging narratives of memory in Latin America’
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: 30 September 2010
Institute for the Study of the Americas, London
23rd-24th November 2010

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October 2010

CFP: International Praxis Conference on Cultural Memory and Coexistence
Date: 18-20 March 2011
Venue: Fatih University, Istanbul
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 1 October 2010

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November 2010

"De Silbos Cebollas y Yunteros"
Concert in Homage of Miguel Hernández
23rd November 6.30 – 8.00 p.m.
Chancellor’s Hall (University of London - Senate House)
Presented by Maria-José Blanco (IGRS), in collaboration with Instituto Cervantes London.
This event is free. For more information please email maria-jose.blanco@sas.ac.uk
On the centenary of the birth of Spanish Poet Miguel Hernández (Orihuela, Alicante,30 Oct. 1910- 28 March 1942) the CCM invites you to commemorate this date with a concert in homage to the poet. Contemporary Flamenco Company La Típica will interpret the poet’s work in their new project "De Silbos Cebollas y Yunteros". Flamenco, jazz, classical music, contemporary dance and theatre come together to bring their own vision of some of the author’s most significant poems. La Típica was formed in London in 2008. It is an innovative and international collaboration between Jorge Bravo, guitarist, Natalia Garcia, dancer, Ulises Diaz, singer, Demi Garcia, drums and English violinist Meg Hamilton. http://flamencolatipica.com/

CONF: ‘Between the past and the future: Challenging narratives of memory in Latin America’
Institute for the Study of the Americas, London
23rd-24th November 2010




Cultural Memory Seminar: 'Gender and Memory'
27th November 2010
11am-4pm
Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, Room ST274
Dr Anna Reading (London South Bank University), ‘Gender, the Holocaust and Narratives of Remembering’
Silke Arnold-de Simine (Birkbeck, University of London), 'Gender and Family Memory in W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants and Monika Maron’s Pavel’s Letters’
The seminar will conclude with a round-table discussion, with the participation of Susannah Radstone, the day’s speakers and seminar attendees, so we’d like as many interested people as possible to come.The first in this year's Cultural Memory Seminar Series is guest-organised by Dr Silke Arnold-de Simine and Dr Joanne Leal, Birkbeck.

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December 2010

CFP: "Commemoration and Contestation: The Uncertain Future of Memory Initiatives in Latin America"
SLAS 2011: University of St.Andrews, 8-10 April 2011
Deadline for Submissions: 1 December 2010

THEATRE: Rendition Monologues
Scripted by Christine Bacon
Original score by Michael Edwards
8 December 2010, 17:30 - 20:00
(Performance 18:00-19:00, followed by Panel Discussion)
University of London, Beveridge Hall, Senate House, Malet St WC1E 7HU

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CFP: The Carnival of Death: Perceptions of Death in Europe and the Americas
An interdisciplinary conference organised by Maria-José Blanco and Ricarda Vidal, IGRS
Deadline for submissions: 21 June 2010
Conference dates: 24-26 Feb 2011
Venue: Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

In the most general terms death is defined as the final and irreversible cessation of the vital functions in an organism, the ending of life. However, the precise definition of death and the exact time of the transition from life to death differ according to culture, religion and legal system.
The essential insecurities and doubts over the nature and state of death have affected cultural production since the beginning of civilization. Likewise our attitude towards death is characterised by anxieties and ambiguities. ‘On the one hand the horror of death drives us off, for we prefer life; on the other an element at once solemn and terrifying fascinates us and disturbs us profoundly,’ writes George Bataille. Death can be ‘a consummation devoutly to be wished’ to say it with Hamlet, or ‘a wonderful gain’ to quote Schopenhauer. But while philosophers and poets explore the dark attraction of death, in everyday life we push all thought of it aside. Death, and above all our own death, must not impinge upon the living.
From the beginning of Modernism death and the dying have been pushed from the centre of family and community to the edges of society. The hygienic, clean and sterile spaces of hospitals, hospices and morgues have replaced the intimacy of the home, while cemeteries have been moved from the centre of town to the outskirts. The progress in medical science has lead to an increase in life expectancy in the Western world resulting in an ever ageing population – it seems as though we have almost found a cure for death. Medical apparatus now allow us to keep a body alive and prolong physical existence even after the brain has died – but what then does it mean to be human and how can we die in a humane way? Recent cases of assisted suicide of terminally ill people have sparked off discussions in the UK around the right to die and the dignity of death.
Meanwhile changes in religious believes and practices are turning ancient traditions into commercial enterprises and festivities such as Halloween parties or Mexico’s Día de los muertos or Rio de Janeiro’s carnival , which are marketed as major tourist attractions.  Western societies no longer have the time or the space to mourn as they used to. Rather the public mourning and posthumous apotheosis of celebrities such as Princess Di or more recently Michael Jackson appear to have taken the place of the private. Here mourning has become public spectacle, international and accessible to all via TV, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter.
This conference sets out to look at death in the contemporary world and how changes in society since the turn of the 19th century have affected our perceptions of death. It consists of three broad themes which interconnect with each other: Death and Desire; Death and Power; and Rituals and Customs. We invite papers from a wide variety of disciplines and approaches such as:  anthropology, art history, cultural studies, film studies, fine art, history, law, literary studies, philosophy, psychology, theology, etc.

Possible themes include but are not limited to:
- death and sex,  the death drive, taboo
- Murder
- the right to die (suicide, euthanasia, self-sacrifice)
- the right to kill (death penalty, eugenics, assisted dying, sacrifice)
- political assassination, genocide, mass-murder, war, suicide bombings
- burial customs, graveyards, necropolis, etc.
- privacy/intimacy of death – death and alienation
- mourning, bereavement – coping with grief
- The cult of death, the celebrity death (James Dean, Princess Di, Michael Jackson, etc.)

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to carnivalofdeath.conf@gmail.com by 21 June 2010.

 

CFP: The city: identity, exchange and esthetic territory - Latin America - Africa - Asia
June 22nd and 23rd, 2010
Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Room Vasari, Galerie Colbert, 2 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris (France)
Symposium organized by the Association Instead !, in partnership with HiCSA (University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, France).
Deadline for Submissions: 15 March 2010.

Central or peripheral, capital or megalopolis, the modern city is recognized for its socio-cultural dynamism, its geographical position and its importance within a national or international entity. Place of memory, desire, language and exchange, the city is also a reflection of its identity and of the cultural diversity of its territory. Between fascination and repulsion, the city provokes a different feeling in each person. Thanks to their poetic, heuristic, metaphysical and visionary approaches, the artist and the architect offer a complex image of the city. This synthesizes and amplifies the sometime passive perception of its inhabitants.
This conference is devoted to the study of Developing Countries? cities, of Latin America, Africa and Asia. The aim will be to confront different views of the city, viewed by the inhabitant, the artist and the architect as a living organism in perpetual transformation. These three views will be put in perspective in order to explore the methods of construction and deconstruction of the identities of urban space and its dwellers. This process will be enlightened through a comprehension of the city as an experimental laboratory, while insisting on the concepts of physical and cultural exchanges. This symposium will thus try to analyze the urban territory as a trigger for changes and will aim at revealing the various strategies of appropriation of public space. It also wish to highlight the resemblance and dissimilarities these « new » cities maintain with those of the United States and Europe, in particular concerning their way of envisioning fore-coming urban issues, in line with current reflections on the Grand Paris.
Launched by the Instead! research group (www.instead-art.org), this conference invites human sciences specialists, artists and architects to collaborate to map an artistic, cultural and social cartography of cities in Developing Countries.
The interventions will be articulated around the interaction of several axes exploring the relations of the city with art and politics, history and migration, imagination and utopia.

These topics and key words will direct the conference:

1 - Appropriation and documentation of the urban space
-          urban artistic strategies: performances, happenings, events or any other form of actions and interventions of artists in the public urban space.
-         the flâneur, the pedestrian, the walker.

2 - The city: a place of memory
-          art, history, politics
-          public and private art commissions.

3 - Image and representation of the city
-          art and urbanism: dialogue between the architect and the artist
-          relation between the artist and the environment
-          esthetics of the urban landscape
-          utopia

4 - City and migration
-          concepts of transit and attrition
-          urbanism and cultural identity
-          globalization and urbanization (center/periphery)

The proposals (300 words) are to be sent to the organizers before March 15th, 2010.

Julie Jones, ATER University Paris I : jjones@instead-art.org
Olivia Speer, allocataire moniteur University Paris I : ospeer@instead-art.org
More Information: www.instead-art.org

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CFP ARTICLES:
How long does it take? When, why and how do democratic societies remember and address historical injustices perpetrated against minorities?

Deadline for submissions of abstracts: 5 July 2010

The histories of many contemporary democratic societies are marked by the victimisation of ethnic, religious, social or political minorities. Often such injustices happened under previous (undemocratic) regimes. In some societies, such as Germany (in relation to Jews) or New Zealand (in relation to Maori), the public acknowledgment of the suffering of certain minorities has arguably become a cornerstone of national identity. In others, such as Indonesia (in relation to members of the Communist Party), there may be only brief windows of opportunity to remember and address historical injustices. In others again, such as Turkey (in relation to Armenians), the crimes perpetrated against minorities have barely been publicly remembered.
Why and how do democratic societies remember and forget the victimisation of minorities in the past? We are interested in papers that engage with the issue of the time lag between the injustice suffered by a minority group, and the redress, apology or public memorialisation authorised or demanded by the majority or at least broader sections of society than the victims or their descendants. Is it possible to identify tipping points at which the remembering becomes more important than the forgetting or vice versa? Are particular conditions necessary for addressing traumatic aspects of a collective past?
We welcome case studies that explore these questions, as well as papers that adopt a broader theoretical perspective. We are particularly interested in contributions that take a comparative approach.
Please send an abstract (300 to 500 words) and a brief bio to Kate McGregor (k.mcgregor@unimelb.edu.au) by 5 July 2010. You can also contact Kate if you have any questions prior to the submission of your abstract. We will acknowledge receipt of all abstracts submitted. If you do not receive a reply within a week, please re-send. We will send out invitations for the submission of full manuscripts by 20 July 2010. The deadline for manuscripts will be in early November 2010.
A selection of papers will be published in the peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal Time and Society. Should we decide to solicit more papers than could be accommodated in that journal, we will approach a book publisher.
editors: Dr Kate McGregor and Prof Klaus Neumann, Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

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CFP: Concentrationary Imaginaries/ Imaginaries of Violence in Contemporary Cultures and Cultural Forms

Keynote Speakers: 
Adriana Cavarero (Verona)
Paul Gilroy (LSE)
Paul Virilio (TBC)

An international transdisciplinary conference organised by the AHRC Research Project Concentrationary Memories: The Politics of Representation 2007-2011 directed by Professors Griselda Pollock (CentreCATH) and Max Silverman (CFFCS)

Date:  January 2011
To be held at the University of Leeds
Submission deadline is 1 August 2010;

Our research into the politics of representation of the concentrationary after 1945 aims to pose the following questions:
Has any aspect of the ‘concentrationary universe’ (Rousset), the sociological experiment in total destruction of humanity in which ‘everything is possible’ (Arendt) seeped into and been disseminated through contemporary culture?   Is there evidence of a concentrationary imaginary in contemporary culture?
Far from being contained as a one-off, geopolitically contained event, the concentrationary and its horrific extension, the exterminationary, initiated the political novelty that Arendt defined as totalitarianism. Totalitarianism was an experiment in the destruction of the human, the human being identified by Arendt, in the aftermath of that attempted destruction , as spontaneity and plurality.
In this conference we wish to investigate the diverse and often oblique manifestations of the legacies of the concentrationary in  various forms of contemporary culture from literature to cinema and video games.  Can aspects of the increasing obsessions with violence in media culture be related to an unacknowledged concentrationary legacy?  Where is the concentrationary most visible?  Is it identifiable by a lack of conscious memory that might continuously warn of its menace? In what forms has the concentrationary continued in political realisations but, significantly for our research, in imagination and in imaginary forms? Where might we locate its signs? What are its effects on the subjectivities such cultural manifestations help to shape?
We invite proposals for 20 minute papers to be submitted by email using the form in attachment. Submission deadline is 1 August 2010;
all abstracts must be sent electronically to conmem@leeds.ac.uk . Selected papers will be notified in September 2010. We shall also invite the selected participants to submit their papers in advance of the conference for review and publication during the conference. Further details will be given to the relevant contributors after paper selection is completed.
The following are suggested areas for an investigation of the emergence, persistence and transmogrification of a concentrationary imaginary in contemporary culture as an essential part of a cultural-political challenge to its continuing threat:
Post-Holocaust Political Theory
Fascinating Fascism
Science Fiction and the Concentrationary Empire
Contemporary Apocalyptic Art : Images of Fear
Popular Culture
 Racism and Others
Counter-concentrationary Imaginaries
Dark Times: Arendt’s Legacies in Cultural Theory and Practice
Cinema and the Concentrationary Imaginary
Identifying Sites of Cruelty
Agamben and Culture

E-mail: conmem@leeds.ac.uk
T: +44 [0]113 343 5267
F: +44 [0]113 245 1977

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“Echoes of the Georgian and Victorian societies in contemporary British arts”.
Conference organised by the association One Piece at a Time (GEIAB) and the université Paris-Diderot (English studies),
5th of June 2010 in Paris.
Read more
Since the 1980s the British art world has witnessed a resurgence of themes, critical thought, and aesthetic materials associated with the 18th and 19th centuries. Yinka Shonibare quotes Fragonard (The swing, After Fragonard, 2004), while Sutapa Biswas mimes George Stubbs in the video Birdsongs (2004). Ingrid Pollard follows William Wordsworth and his sister around Grasmere (Wordsworth Heritage, 1992). Damien Hirst resorts to science and empirical approaches to redefine the relation between nature and culture. Whether associated with the young British artists or the Black Artists, perceived as belonging to the modernist painting tradition like Lucian Freud (Large interiors 11 - After Watteau), or working towards politically and socially engaged practices, such as Conrad Atkinson in Excavated Mutilations (2003) or For Emily (1992), artists copy, invoke, and parody with increased alacrity the arts from the Georgian and Victorian period. And significantly, these two periods encompass the colonisation of India, the sealing of the Union Act between the United Kingdom and Scotland, the rise and peak of the industrialisation process, the development of communication networks, and epochal innovations in the visual arts with the impact of the birth of both photography and cinema.

The links go beyond the sole field of artistic production in their extraction of elements borrowed from the philosophy, literature, economy and politics of the Georgian and Victorian past. Art historians and scholars in British Studies in literature and art departments agree on this judgement, as the exhibition on William Hogarth at the Musée du Louvre in 2006-07 suggested : the show ended with the series Diary of a Victorian Dandy by Yinka Shonibare. In 2008, the ‘société des anglicistes de l’enseignement supérieur’ organised its annual conference on the notion of resurgence, seen as polarised in binary oppositions such as burying/emergence, loss/restitution. However, it also divided the sessions in the different periods and disciplines of British Studies.

It is our intention to pursue this research which aims to read over postmodernity in relation to the revival of tradition, the creation of the canon, and the invention of tradition (Hobsbawm 2006). Indeed, the reminiscence can ground itself in the reconstruction of the past, or in the use of attributes, referents, cultural characteristics, and various elements such as a motif, an art work, artistic, philosophical, social, political and economic materials, which become significant through their contemporary interpretation, and the imaginary constructions and myths that result from the creation of a cultural heritage. The resurgence is enabled by the use of quotation (Antoine Compagnon 1979), and literalness (Rifaterre 1979) applied to the visual arts; it is a re-enactment, a plagiarism, a borrowing or a reference to art works, assessed in relation with the specific art worlds from which they are taken.

It would seem particularly prolific to deconstruct and to reword the cultural exchanges between disciplines and historical periods in the context of the current international scientific interest in “cultural transfers”, and their use in critical terminology. The conference the study group One Piece at a Time will organise in June 2010 aims to question the forms but also the causes of the resurgences of aesthetic characteristics within the contemporary British visual arts from the 1980s to the present. It will be an opportunity to compare the shared methodologies and analytical tools in different university disciplines, from practices in use in art history departments, as well as British studies and history.

We welcome papers in particular on the following perspectives:
- aesthetic motifs and quotations from the history of art in contemporary British art works: the use of landscape, portrait, the reference to conventions from the Georgian and Victorian period.
- Cultural and social motifs in contemporary British art works: colonialism, industrialisation, etc…
- Use of historical philosophical, scientific, literary references.

The conference will be held on the 5th of June 2010 in Paris at the Institut Charles V (université Paris VII) or at the institut national d’histoire de l’art.

Propositions of 250/300 words are to be sent to Sophie Orlando (so.orlando@gmail.com) and Gabriel Gee (gabrielneilg@hotmail.com) before the 15th of March 2009. Answers will be obtained by the 15th of April.

Furthermore, in preparation for the publication of the proceedings of the conference on the website of One Piece at a Time (www.geiab.org), participants will be expected to send a preliminary text before the 5th of June 2010.

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