Showing posts with label Public memory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Public memory. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

CFP: ‘Memory in a Memory-Less Age’

CFP: ‘Memory in a Memory-Less Age’

Sunday 7th to Tuesday 9th Sept 2008
Peterhouse, University of Cambridge

Proposals for papers (30 minutes duration) are invited on the theme, for a conference organised by the Centre for the Study of Jewish–Christian relations to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Centre. Papers may be presented from a variety of disciplinary approaches that illustrate the theme with reference to the study of Jewish – Christian relations. Proposals, containing a title and an abstract of no more than 250 words, should be submitted by December 1st 2007 to Dr James Aitken (jka12@cam.ac.uk), CJCR, Wesley House, Jesus Lane, Cambridge CB5 8BJ UK. In conjunction with the conference, artistic events will be held, both throughout the year and at the time of the conference.

The Theme
‘Memory in a Memory-Less Age’

Remembrance has been a central theme in Jewish–Christian relations, and a major justification for teaching the issue. However, how do we respond to this imperative to remember when instantaneous is preferred to long-lasting information, and when remembrance has become such a sensitive issue between generations? It is often said that 'today’s news is tomorrow’s chip paper’, but the birth of the MTV generation and its finite, channel-hopping attention span has heralded a new style of reporting and recording. With the need for instantaneous gratification and an ever-increasing information overload, where and how much history is actually being recorded, preserved, remembered?

Topics that might be covered include:

Memorial days and memorialisation
Interfaith Education and the internet
The internet as a means or an obstacle to remembrance
Education and the teaching of History
The psychology of remembrance
Memory in film and the Arts
Virtual Judaism

Dr James Aitken
Academic Director
Centre for the Study of Jewish–Christian Relations
Wesley House
Jesus Lane
Cambridge CB5 8BJ
Phone: (0044 1223) 742 157

Email: jka12@cam.ac.uk
Visit the website at http://www.woolfinstitute.cam.ac.uk/cjcr/

Thursday, July 05, 2007

CFP: Conference on Public Memory and Ethnicity

CFP: Conference on Public Memory and Ethnicity
Conference Location: Portland, Oregon
Conferene Date: October 26-28, 2007
CFP Deadline: August 1, 2007

The York Center for Public Memory Studies will sponsor a conference on Public Memory and Ethnicity this October 26-28, 2007 at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. The conference will feature presentations by scholars in rhetorical studies, history, Jewish studies, communication studies, African American studies, and other disciplines. We are happy to announce the following featured speakers:

* Erna Paris, author of several books including the award winning Long Shadows: Truth, Lies, and History

* Stephen H. Browne, eminent scholar of rhetoric and public memory

* Mark McPhail, author of several books on African American history and racial discourse

* Dexter Gordon, prolific scholar and director of African American Studies at the University of Puget Sound

Scholars who wish to be included in the concurrent sessions are invited to submit abstracts by August 1, 2007. Those selected for presentation will be notified by August 15th. Applications for presentation, including a one-page, single-spaced abstract, should be sent to G. Mitchell Reyes at mreyes@lclark.edu. The conference will be held on the campus of Lewis and Clark College.

The study of public memory and ethnicity is increasingly an inter-disciplinary phenomenon. This conference seeks to capitalize on that interdisciplinarity, bringing scholars together from various fields to share and test ideas regarding the connections between public memory and ethnicity. At minimum, public memory assumes that memory is not only an individual phenomenon, it is also a collective and public one. Individuals do not simply remember individually, they get remembered in strategic and stylized ways. These practices of remembrance serve several important social and ontological functions: they mark what is and what is not worthy of memory; they reveal cultural values; they instruct and order our social world; and, taken together, they tell a narrative out of which a sense of collective identity emerges. This conference seeks to connect with and extend our understanding of public memory by considering its relationship with race and ethnicity. How does public memory carve up race and ethnicity? How do race and ethnicity constrain public memory? These questions only begin a long list of interesting problems found at the nexus of public memory and ethnicity. The conference will explore these issues and related problems regarding the influence of remembrance on the order of things.

The conference is organized in connection with the conference series on public memory developed at Syracuse University, and will lead to publication of a university press book to be edited by the conference organizer. All papers presented will be eligible for consideration for publication.

G. Mitchell Reyes, Ph.D.
Department of Communication, MSC 35
Lewis and Clark College
0615 SW Palatine Hill Rd
Portland, OR 97219

Email: mreyes@lclark.edu