1st Call for papers
MatchPoints Seminar 2012
Conflict in Memory:
Interpersonal and Intergenerational Remembering of War, Conflict and
Transition
An interdisciplinary conference
10 – 12 May 2012, Aarhus University, Denmark
War, conflicts and transitions have always played a significant role in defining communal identity,
often with reference to events that happened centuries ago. The role of passing on collective
memories of these types of events has become even more complex in a globalizing world, where
new configurations of cosmopolitan memories challenge more locally and nationally based
memories. The many aspects of societies’ remembering and forgetting call for interdisciplinary
cooperation. This conference brings together the fields of history, psychology, literature, and
cultural studies and presents new research on how memories of war, conflict and transition are
passed on from generation to generation and how these processes transform and shape identities.
Confirmed keynote speakers:
Balthazar Garzon (investigative judge, Madrid)
Alistair Thomson (Monash University, Melbourne)
Andreas Huyssen (Columbia University)
James Wertsch (Washington University, St. Louis)
Dorthe Berntsen (Aarhus University)
Daniel Levy (Stony Brook University)
Anna Bull (University of Bath)
Luisa Passserini (University of Torino)
Tom Dunne (University College Cork)
Willliam Hirst (New School of Social Sciences, New York)
Workshop themes:
-
Negotiating National and Cosmopolitan Memories
Psychological Approaches to Interpersonal and Intergenerational Remembering
Narrative Templates in Representations of Conflict and Civil Warfare
Memory, Identity and Social Cohesion: Commemoration and Intergenerational Memory
of War, Conflict and
Purposes and ideas of the workshops:
Negotiating National and Cosmopolitan Memories
Organised by Stefan Iversen and Mads Rosendahl Thomsen (contact: Mads Rosendahl Thomsen
litmrt@hum.au.dk)
This section explores how cosmopolitanism has become an important topic in the study of identity
formation and the changes of memories in an increasingly globalized world. The keynotes will
address the Holocaust as a transnational object of memory that has had a profound influence on
memory politics in terms of lawmaking, commemorative gestures and in educating new
generations. The section consists of the following three sessions: 1. Transformed places, 2. Politics
of memory and 3. Clashing memories.
Psychological Approaches to Interpersonal and Intergenerational Remembering
Organised by Annette Bohn, Celia Harris, and Jonathan Koppel (contact: Annette Bohn anetboh@psy.au.dk)
This workshop will cover a broad range of topics concerned with social and cultural issues in
memory, from collaborative memories in couples to national survey studies on memories for
important public events, to the way that memories of traumatic events (personal and public) inform,
and are informed by, one’s personal and social identity. The workshop will be organised in three
sessions addressing the following topics:
1. Collective remembering and forgetting in small groups
2. Memories of transitions: important personal and national events
3. Trauma, identity and memory
Narrative Templates in Representations of Conflict and Civil Warfare
Organised by Hans Lauge Hansen, Francesco Caviglia, Leonardo Cecchini (contact: Leonardo
Cecchini - leonardo.c@hum.au.dk)
This workshop explores the role of narrative discourse in the intergenerational memory processes of
conflict and civil warfare. The concept of narrative discourse is to be understood in its broadest
sense as fictional and non-fictional representations and all the hybrid genres in between, based on
linguistic, visual and corporal/physical expressions. “Conflict and civil warfare” refers to a broad
range of historical events which affected individuals and groups within the same national
community, like the Nazi suppression of the German opposition in the thirties, the Spanish Civil,
War, Stalinism in USSR, political violence in the ’60s and ’70s, etc. What kind of social processes
are required to convert communicative memory into cultural memory, what is the role of narrative
in these processes, which are the generic templates employed and what is the social impact of these
representations?
Memory, Identity and Social Cohesion: Commemoration and Intergenerational Memory of
War, Conflict and Crisis
Organised by Michael Böss (contact: Michael Böss - engmb@hum.au.dk)
In Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (1994), the American historian John Gillis
suggested a typology of commemorations based on three periods: a pre-national, a national and a
post-national period. During the pre-national period, commemorations were either local or
universal, and the elites and the masses tended not to share commemorative rites. The subsequent
‘national’ cult of commemoration served to unite people within territorial nation-states. This
implied a degree of democratisation of official commemorative events and monuments. In the third
period, there would not be a total demise, but a weakening of national commemoration. Gillis also
predicted that we might be returning to the medieval pattern: Commemorations would become more
local and more universal (‘global’). He also believed, however, that in order for societies to cohere,
there would be a need for public commemoration. Without the identifications that commemorations
help create, citizens would find it difficult to interact and cooperate. – This workshops invites
papers that address both empirical cases and theoretical cases these issues with special reference to
commemorations and memories of war, conflict and crisis.
Organiser: Prof Michael Böss, Director of MatchPoints Seminar - engmb@hum.au.dk
Organising committee: Annette Bohn, Hans Lauge Hansen, Francesco Caviglia, Leonardo
Cecchini, Stefan Iversen and Mads Rosendahl Thomsen
Deadlines for proposals: January 15, 2012
Conference fee: 150 EUR
For further information, see www.matchpoints.au.dk
Conference venue: Aarhus University, Søauditorierne, Bartholins Allé 3, 8000 Aarhus.
About MatchPoints Seminar:
The purpose of a MatchPoints Seminar is to create dialogue between Aarhus University and the surrounding society
concerning subjects of wider societal interest. Therefore the seminars will be open to the public. Moreover, it is
characteristic of a MatchPoints seminar that the speakers at these seminars rank among the most highly esteemed
national and international figures in the field and subject that the seminar is focused on.