Call for papers (reminder)

'CONSTRUCTIONS OF CONFLICT: TRANSMITTING MEMORIES OF THE PAST IN EUROPEAN
HISTORIOGRAPHY, LITERATURE AND MEDIA'

An interdisciplinary conference hosted by MEICAM, the Modern European
Ideologies, Conflict and Memory Research Group, Swansea University,
September 10.–12. 2007.

Keynote speakers will include:

Dr John Foot (University College London)

Prof. Mary Fulbrook (University College London)

The recent war in Iraq has produced a heightened awareness of how memories
of conflict, such as the rescue of Jessica Lynch, are mediated and
represented in the public domain. This inter­disciplinary conference seeks
to investigate the ways in which memories of social, political and military
conflicts have been transmitted within 20th and 21st century European
culture. Which roles are played by those who mediate the memory of conflict
(first-hand witnesses, historians, jour­nalists, writers, filmmakers,
bloggers)? What kinds of interactions and tensions are visible between
public and private discourses of memory? In what ways are memories of
conflict (or their absence) shaped by the political, economic and social
parameters of the present? To which ends are such narratives of the past
deployed?

Papers are sought from the areas of history, literature, cultural studies,
translation studies, film/media studies, soci­ology, politics, geography,
law, psychology and philosophy on the transmission of the memory of
conflict in a European context. These could include World Wars I and II,
the Spanish Civil War, the Cold War, protest movements (1968, Greenham
Common, G8 at Genoa), the terrorist attacks in Madrid and London, as well
as colonial engagements such as the Algerian War of Indepen­dence. Papers
exploring European perspec­tives on global conflicts are also welcome.

Aspects that papers at this conference might address:



·         History versus memory; archival versus oral history

·         The ‘ownership’ of memories of conflict

·         Bearing witness: first-hand memories of conflict

·         Witness testimony: issues of authenticity, reliability and
veracity

·         Memory, history and revisionism

·         Memorials, museums and landscapes of memory

·         ‘Memory contests’ between differing representations of conflicts

·         Public debates on/public perceptions of memories of conflict

·         The use of ‘memory objects’ (photographs, letters) in
representations of conflict

·         The shifting roles of different mediators of the past

(historians, journalists, writers, internet bloggers etc.)

·         The role of historians/journalists in war-crimes trials

·         The role of discourses of memory in shaping perceptions of
perpetrators and victims

·         The ethics of history and memory

·         The mediation of the memory of conflict in educational contexts

·         The incorporation of historical material in literature and film

·         The use of literary/filmic techniques in historical accounts

·         The memory of conflict in the crime novel or other literary
genres

·         How mediators of the past deal with the memory of trauma or
repressed memories of conflict

Abstracts for individual papers or full sessions (300 words) should be sent
to the organisers,

Dr. Jonathan Dunnage, Dr. Jane Dunnett, Dr. Kathryn Jones and Dr. Katharina
Hall ([log in to unmask]) by January 19 2007. Papers will be given in
English, and we intend to publish selected contributions.