Conflict, Memory Transfers and the Reshaping of Europe
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Research Centre for Communication and Culture
LISBON, 2-3 DECEMBER 2008
The international conference Conflict, Memory Transfers and the Reshaping of Europe opens a series of international conferences on Culture and Conflict organized by the Research Centre for Communication and Culture.
The conference will address, on an interdisciplinary basis and across several media, the way conflict and memory have reshaped the face of Europe in the twentieth century. The conference aims to discuss processes of memory construction associated with the realities of war, colonialism and genocide, as well as cooperation and transborder dialogue. The event wishes to provide further insight into our understanding of the historical, psychological, social, political, ethical and aesthetic aspects of the representation of conflict, trauma and resentment, both as a lasting feature of Europe's legacy, and as a creative force that is moulding its future.
After having experienced the end of the European supremacy and years of unprecedented destruction and nihilism, the end of the Cold War brought about new tensions and perplexities with social and political expression at the national level and with international and trans-national repercussions. Likewise, the re-emergence of Europe as a Union - a project devised to insure peace, prosperity and a new equilibrium in the global age - does not mean that the consequences of the countless historical atrocities, across its territory and beyond, are forgotten. On the contrary, memory activity is an ongoing process inherent to a critical re-examination of official historiography and to the narratives of all those - individual, group or community - who want to invest their experiences with cultural meaning.
Proposals for papers should address the following four thematic areas:
1.
a)Conflict as a culturally productive force in the formation of Europe.
b)The Cold War and the shaping of memory.
c)Post-1989 European cartographies of memory production.
2.
a)Conflict and the arts/Conflicts in the arts
b)The architecture of memory: from stone to screen.
c)Gazing over the past: visual media and remembrance.
3.
a)Media events and conflict.
b)The wars of memory in our global age and in our high-tech societies.
c)Engendering oblivion and sexing memories.
4.
a) Cultural memory, identity and citizenship in a multicultural and multiethnic Europe;
Invited Speakers
Cathy Caruth (Emory University, USA)
Jan Klima (Univerzita Hradec Králové, Czech Republic)
Timothy Snyder (University of Yale, USA)
Josep Sanchez Cervelló (Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain)
Irene Flunser Pimentel (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal)
Aleida Assmann (Universität Konstanz, Germany)
200 words paper abstracts and a short vita should be sent by email to cultureandconflict[at]fch.lisboa.ucp.pt until May 30 2008. The working languages of the conference are Portuguese and English. Paper presentations should last about 20 minutes. Abstracts will be subject to revision by the Organizing Committee. Participants who wish to have their papers considered for publication in a peer-reviewed volume entitled , Memory Transfers and the Reshaping of Europe should submit the written version (max. 25000 characters) no later than February 28, 2009.
The Conference fee is 30 Euros for those delivering papers and 60 Euros for those wishing to attend the Conference. These fees include lunch on the two days of the meeting. Payment information will be provided soon.
Organizing Committee:
Helena Gonçalves Silva
Filomena Viana Guarda
José Miguel Sardica
Adriana Martins
Diana Gonçalves
CECC - Research Centre for Communication and Culture
I CECC Conference on Culture and Conflict
Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Palma de Cima
1649-023 Lisboa - PORTUGAL
For more information: Research Center for Communication and Culture