Call for Papers and Call for Panel Proposals

The Centre for Culture and Cultural Studies (CCCS)

The Balkan Network for Culture and Culture Studies (BNCCS)

Annual Conference 2013: «Cultural Memory»

September 5-6, 2013, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia

The deadline for proposals is February 1st, 2013

The Centre for Culture and Cultural Studies (CCCS) and The Balkan Network for Culture and Culture Studies (BNCCS) will organize the first of many to follow, annually-held conferences, under the overarching theme «Cultural Memory».

The interest in the past, and consequently, the interest in collective and individual memory, is quite pertinent to our overall present-day research interests. Finding a way to articulate and express individual and collective identities, which find themselves under the undeniable pressure of globalization, transition and consumer processes, is becoming increasingly important. On the one hand, in today’s contemporary, post-modern societies, the various ethnic groups call for recognition, which in turn demonstrates a need for the construction of their pasts, and thus, their cultural memories. On the other hand, if national, regional, religious and/or local cultural identities present today were portrayed as more or less stable entities, today they may be observed as nothing more than events, changes or conflicts usually associated with secularization, industrialization, globalization, migration, or many other political, economic, cultural and/or religious. From this stance, culture is seen as shaped under the influence of processes that stand in constant mutual tension. In other words, it is located in a state of constant negotiation with the newly present conditions, values, ideas and beliefs, set in circumstances whence the previously dominant segments are no longer present. In such processes, the term memory occupies a central role.

The objective of this first conference is twofold: namely, to contribute to the study of cultural memory by unlocking narratives about the past (and their canonization), and offer relevant critical observations on the manifestations of cultural memory that are not essentially ‘narratives’. This approach provides a kind of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary access to cultural memory taken from various perspectives.

In this context, we are faced the following questions: how do we recall, remember and forget? What stories are ‘permitted’ and which are ‘forbidden’? How does the past determine the present and shape the future? How do the various discourses of the past determine the social and personal identities? How are our deepest emotions, desires and fantasies articulated in the present through the discursive space of memory? What are the relations between memory and monuments, archives and museums? How can we understand the dual nature of monuments: as tools of ideologically driven memory (fixed memory) and/or as constant sources of creative construction and opening up of memory? Does technological development influence the process of remembering the past? What are the implications of a digitalization of memory? What kind of history is created by the massive use of digital technologies (i.e., online archives that are encoding/decoding their users’ memories in virtual space)? How do the systems used for production affect the ways that use, protect and work with memory? In what ways is cultural tourism associated with memory? How does it reflect the local and global histories in terms of which narratives are being produced and consumed?

On that note, individual and collective memory within the processes of creating identities provides for the contemporary researcher indispensable links to the myriad present-day realities that are at the same time quite problematic. This duality manifests itself in the creative and conceptual forms of expression. Hence, the aim of the conference is to bring closer the various aspects applied in studying cultural memory. The conference aims at fostering a critical dialogue beyond the boundaries set by various disciplines, thus papers from various disciplines and fields are most welcomed, including art history, literature, anthropology, architecture, philosophy, political science, sociology, cultural geography, cultural studies, media and film studies, ethnology and folklore, economics, history, heritage studies, museum studies, landscape studies, leisure studies, tourism studies, transport studies and urban/spatial planning.

Possible topics could include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

Cultural Memory and Identity: family memory; biographical and autobiographical memory; the ‘homå’; immigration; the migrant; borders; nationalism; ethnicity; history and changing historical narratives; tradition; violence; trauma and terror; forgiveness; memories of transitions: important personal and national events.

Cultural Memory and Politics: the use of propaganda; the use of cultural memory; the politics of cultural memory; authority; resistance; creating cultural memory; collective remembering and forgetting.

Cultural Memory and Space/Place: architecture; geography (cartography); the city and urbanization; the use of nature in the collective memory; transformed places; monuments, archives, museums.

Cultural Memory and Social Institutions/Cultural Products: myth; religion; art/literature presentation; language; clashing memories, popular culture.

Cultural Memory and Everyday Life: rituals; bodily practices; nostalgia.

Mediated Memories: cultural representations; mass media/digitalized memories; virtual memories.

Cultural Memory and Tourism: ‘imagined routes’ (mythic highways and meta-narratives); crossing boundaries; war itineraries; violence and displacement; consumerism.

Papers, creative projects, and other non-traditional presentations exploring the aforementioned topics are also welcomed.

The Conference will be held on September 5-6, 2013 in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia.

Please submit your proposals to conference@cultcenter.net by February 1st, 2013.

Submissions should include a 250-300 word abstract, keywords and a brief bio, as well as a contact address.

The paper proposals should be prepared filling in a paper form.

Please feel free to contact Loreta Georgievska-Jakovleva (lgeorgievska@yahoo.com) or Mishel Pavlovski (mpavlovski@iml.ukim.edu.mk) with any interim questions.

Notifications of acceptance would come no later than February 15th, 2013.

Abstracts will be published and made available with the conference materials. Full papers will be published in the peer-rewieved journal «Култура/Culture».

We are seeking proposals for panels within the scope of the Conference

Panels are organized by internationally recognized experts aiming to bring together researchers on focused topics for an interactive discussion among the panel members and the participants. Panels are an important component of Annual Conference 2013. Panel members are researchers who have done well-known or controversial work related to the theme of the panel. Researchers interested in organizing a special session are invited to submit a formal proposal to conference@cultcenter.net by February 1st, 2013.

Before submitting a panel proposal, the organizer of a panel is expected to contact all the proposed panel members and get their agreement to serve as a panel member. A list of questions to be discussed in the panel should be made available to all the panel members well ahead of time for them to prepare their response. Each panel typically allows a certain amount of time for each panel member to present their response before an open discussion is opened.

The panel proposals should be prepared filling in a panel form.

Fees:

Early registration (till April 1st, 2013): € 40 (for members of The Balkan Network for Culture and Cultural Studies – € 20)

Late registration (till August 15th, 2013): € 60 (for members of The Balkan Network for Culture and Cultural Studies – € 40)

On-site registration (or after August 15th, 2013): € 80 (for members of The Balkan Network for Culture and Cultural Studies – € 60)

The registration fee includes the conference materials, the publication of the abstract and the papers, refreshment breaks, a welcome dinner for all participants of the Conference.

The Centre for Culture and Cultural Studies web site: http://www.cultcenter.net/

Conference web site: http://www.cultcenter.net/conf2013.php