CBEES Annual Conference 2015

Places and Non-Places of Modernity
Movement, Memory and Imagination in Contemporary Europe

The Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) at Södertörn
University, Sweden invites paper proposals for CBEES Annual
Conference, to be held in Stockholm on 3–4 December 2015. The
conference theme is “Places and Non-Places of Modernity: Movement,
Memory and Imagination in Contemporary Europe”.

 Call for Panels and Papers
Deadline: 5 May 2015

Conference Description

This interdisciplinary conference will focus on the notion of place in
the more recent modernity of globalization and internationalization,
with its many histories of movement, migration, transfer and
transmission. The scheme of exile has been important for our
understanding of modernity, which is defined as the transformation of
the old and commonplace. The pace of social change in recent times
seems, however, to bring about a different relation to place, perhaps
also to be understood as non-place, defined as a space that does not
necessarily hold meaning for us.

We invite paper proposals from the humanities, social sciences and
environmental sciences to reflect on the relation to place or space in
the ways that Eastern and Western Europe have been reshaped, contested
and remembered in the transformations after 1989. In particular, this
conference focuses on the Baltic Sea region and Eastern Europe, where
Europe appeared as a place, a memory and a lodestar for integration
and modernization. What have been the mechanisms and ideas conducting
the transfers of goods, people, institutions and values in this new
Europe? Is there a “spatial turn” in the study of these processes,
with a growth of regionality as a return to a place? What is the
relation to place in the experience of contemporary Eastern and
Western Europe and how is it articulated in literature and in art, in
memory and in exile cultures? What can the “memory boom” tell us about
the relation to the places of Europe today?

We invite proposals for individual papers and/or panels. The deadline
for all paper and panel proposals is 5 May, 2015. Proposals should
include the full title and a brief abstract (250 words). Please
include with your abstract a short biographical note (academic
affiliation and full contact information). PhD students and younger
scholars are particularly encouraged to participate in the conference.
Individual papers will be assigned by the conference organizers
(CBEES) to a panel according to the topic, and should be short enough
to be presented in 15–20 minutes. Word-by-word reading of papers is
strongly discouraged.

The Baltic and East European Graduate School (BEEGS) at Södertörn
University will precede the conference with an afternoon event on 2
December to celebrate its 15th anniversary. All participants are
invited to attend.

Please send your proposal to: [log in to unmask]

Conference web site:
http://www.sh.se/annual_conference_cbees_2015
(working from 1 April)

Organizing Committee
Joakim Ekman, CBEES
Kimmo Granqvist, CBEES
Tora Lane, CBEES