«Violencia política y social en la Europa de la segunda posguerra: balances y nuevas lineas de investigación»

Fecha tope: 10 de enero de 2013

The research group of: “Political and Social Violence in Postwar Europe. Outcomes and Research Perspectives” is organizing four workshops in spring 2013, autumn 2013, spring 2014 and autumn 2014. The workshops will be held at the Istituto storico della Resistenza in Toscana di Firenze (Isrt), at the Istituto per la Storia della Resistenza e della Società contemporanea in provincia di Reggio Emilia (Istoreco) and at the Università degli Studi della Tuscia (Viterbo).

We are interested in political and social violence in Europe after 1945, particularly in Italy, Spain and Germany from a comparative perspective. These three countries experienced similar episodes of political violence just after the Second World War, despite juridical, economic and political differences. The violence occurred both from above (“institutional violence”) and from below (“popular violence”). Examples of “institutional violence” include the preventive detention or administrative detention with no due process for suspected former Nazis in Germany after 1945; or some exceptional Italian laws for special courts with reduced guarantees for the accused to punish fascist crimes. Examples of “popular violence” include operations of former partisans in Italy or the anti-Franco guerrilla resistance in Spain. At the same time, due to conditions of poverty and hunger, social violence unconnected to political claims emerged. Since the border between political and social violence was often undefined it can be difficult to distinguish these two categories.

Forms of violence, occurring in the three countries until the end of the 1940’s, were strictly connected to World War II, but some historical continuities can be observed both in the period before World War II and the post-war decades.

The workshops will be on the following fields of study:

1. Introduction to the issue of the political and social violence in the immediate aftermath of WWII through historiographic questions, debates on the topic, new interpretive approaches and methodological hypothesis.

2. Political and social violence after 1945 in Western Europe: national case studies.

3. The Politics of Punishment: judicial and private uses of violence.

4. Continuities during the second half of the 20th Century in Italy and Europe: management of the public order, practices, language and symbolism of the political and social conflicts.

We seek to develop a team of scholars that can report on the studies about violence after the Second World War in Western Europe (we will also accept proposal about other national case in addition to the three considered). Each scholar will be required to discuss a paper within a workshop and is encouraged to attend the other three. To maximize time for discussion, papers will be circulated in advance to the participants (presenters and discussants).

We particularly welcome the involvement of both established and junior scholars, Post-Doc students and PhD students. We encourage papers on national/local studies and on new interpretative and methodological hypotheses in a comparative perspective.

To be considered for the workshops, please submit a 300-word abstract of your proposed paper, in English or Italian, as well as a brief CV by 10 January 2013 to seminarioviolenza@gmail.com

Successful applicants will be notified by the end of January.

We may be able to assist presenters by partly covering the cost of travel and accommodation.

Scientific Committee: Enrico Acciai (coordinator), Guido Panvini, Camilla Poesio (coordinator), Toni Rovatti.

SYMPOSIUM

New Approaches to the History and Memory of War and Conflict

Date: Saturday 7th December 2013, 9:00 – 17:30

Place: Centre for Research in Memory, Narrative and Histories, University of Brighton

Deadline for registration: 29 November 2013

SYMPOSIUM

New Approaches to the History and Memory of War and Conflict

Date: Saturday 7th December 2013, 9:00 – 17:30

Place: Centre for Research in Memory, Narrative and Histories, University of Brighton

Deadline for registration: 29 November 2013

Place: M2 Boardroom, Grand Parade, University of Brighton

In this year’s symposium, we intend to explore new approaches to the experiences of war and conflict as they are negotiated, remembered, mediated and lived. The focus of the symposium is not only to chart new lines for both theoretical and empirical analysis of the way in which violent conflicts are (and were) apprehended and articulated, but also the ways violent legacies shape and haunt processes of post-conflict transition.

In addition to the keynote speaker Dr. Santanu Das, who will argue for a more emotional and somatic history of the First World War through the discussion of the experience, often ignored, of the Indians that participated in the conflict, the symposium is divided into three panels. The first focuses on the notion of conflict and violence as it is performed and experienced, but also perceived through bodily frames (negotiated in terms of presence or absence) in cultural representation. It discusses the affective realm of warfare – the relevance of pain, pity and grief for the new current paradigms in cultural history. The second panel maps out the entanglements between the politics of the past and the politics of reconciliation in cultures and societies undergoing violent conflict or dealing with ‘post-conflict’ legacies. It deals with the tension between competing narratives, the effects of binary oppositions, and the ambiguous nature of many of the elements that shape post-conflict scenarios. The last panel examines the geographies of memory as a key element of the understanding of war and conflict. Space here will not only be seen as a material container of violent marks of the past or as the main arena for the struggles over memorialisation, but also as an intrinsic dimension of the practice of remembering.

Bringing together scholars with different yet overlapping backgrounds and research expertises, the symposium will reflect upon some of the issues at play in the ever-growing field of peace and conflict studies. Ranging from ethnographic and sociological approaches to more historical-based research, the speakers will deal with singular expressions of both contemporary and historical violence as it is articulated in a range of contrasting spatio-temporal contexts (Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Norway, Indonesia, Kenya, Afghanistan and England among them), thus tracing and offering solutions to common methodological and conceptual challenges from a transnational perspective.

Speakers include: Santanu Das (King’s College London); Emilie Pine (University College Dublin); Gabriel Koureas (Birkbeck, University of London); Kevin McSorely (University of Portsmouth); Mark McGovern (Edge Hill University); Lotte Hughes (The Open University); Stefanie Kappler (Liverpool Hope University); Safet HadžiMuhamedović (Goldsmiths, University of London), Sam Edwards (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Charlotte-Heath-Kelly (Warwick University).

Registration and delegate rates:

This event is open to all but delegates must register in advance. The registration fee is £50 (waged), with concessions for retired/unemployed/unaffiliated delegates (£25) and students (£15). The registration fee includes tea/coffee and lunch.

Booking is now open: You will find a link to the on-line shop on the CRMNH website. Click on the following link and scroll down to bottom of page.

http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/research/centre-for-research-in-memory-narrative-and-histories/conferences/symposium-new-approaches-to-the-history-and-memory-of-war-and-conflict

Any queries please email Dr Sam Carroll: Memorynarrativehistories@brighton.ac.uk.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Memories of the Futures

Date: 2-3 May 2014, London

Place: Chelsea College of Art and Design (UAL) & Institute of Modern

Languages Research

CALL FOR PAPERS

Memories of the Futures

Date: 2-3 May 2014, London

Place: Chelsea College of Art and Design (UAL) & Institute of Modern

Languages Research

Keynote addresses:

Sir Christopher Frayling, Dr. Malcolm Quinn and Prof. Alberto Abruzzese 

From our current ‘after the future’ position, where utopias have been crushed under the awareness that ‘the myth of the future is rooted in modern capitalism’ (Bifo), our imagination persistently draws on an extensive repository of symbols, forms and technologies rooted in history, imagination and memory. Yet, utopian visions of the future loomed large in the modern age, often fuelled by spectacular advancements in technology, applied arts and industries. Even though sequential temporalities and cyclical views of the past have become forcefully questioned by new technologies, the past is still a reservoir, repository and treasure-trove of cultural and symbolic signification which continues to be revisited and reconstructed imaginatively by individuals and communities. The further into the future you look, the further back in time you seem to get…. The conference will address questions such as: is memory scrambled, reversed, reconstituted? Is the future a thing of the past? Is ‘no future’ the new future? How do ancient myths and narratives construct future scenarios? How are myths and histories re-worked in contemporary artistic practises of the future present?

We welcome submissions on all areas related to suggested topics that include:

*   future memory – postmemory, prosthetic memory and the storage of memory in the age of the social media;

*   utopian and dystopian visions,  myths of the future and revolutionary movements;

*   future construction and reappropriation of the imaginary – myth, symbol, archetype, legend, fantasy, science-fiction and their contribution to imagining the future;

*   future commodities, biopolitics, neo-liberalism and the turn of art, fashion and design in late capitalism;

*   science, engineering and materials at the interface of fantasy and technology;

*   the future of mechanization – toy-making, robotics, cyborgs, automata, androids and clones ;

*   cyberpunk, steampunk and its derivatives (dieselpunk, biopunk and decopunk);

*   time and space models – parallel universes, upward mobility and future ecologies;

*   human/non-human – gene ethics, post-humanism, trans-humanism and the ethics of the interface human/gene machine;

In addition to traditional academic paper presentations, we encourage submissions using alternate forms, such as photographic works, art and design objects or multimedia presentations. Send a 250-word paper abstract to memoriesofthefuture@arts.ac.uk with a mini-bio by Dec 1st. 2013.

Steering Committee: Deborah Jaffe (Researcher and Writer), Georgia Panteli (UCL), Emanuela Patti (IMLR), Katia Pizzi (IMLR), Stephen Wilson (Chelsea College of Art and Design (UAL).