Postgraduate and ECR Conference
Saturday 26 May 2018, 9am-5pm
TORCH, Radcliffe Humanities Building, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG
Keynote Speaker: Professor Marita Sturken
(Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University)
This one-day interdisciplinary conference is the culmination of the Mellon-Sawyer Seminar Series Post-War: Commemoration, Reconstruction, Reconciliation. Over the course of the 2017-18 academic year, the Series has brought together academics, creative practitioners, field-workers and policy-makers to explore textual, monumental and aural commemoration and its role in reconciliation and peace-building. This conference provides an unprecedented opportunity for graduates to contribute to and profit from the Series’ findings. Postgraduate students and early career researchers from all disciplines are invited to share their original research in a conference interested in the purpose, practice, significance and consequences of commemorative acts which respond to and emerge from armed conflict. We are particularly interested in what the future of commemorative practice might look like, and how new technologies and social media are changing the ways in which people remember and heal.
We welcome theoretical and methodological diversity, including critical reflections, and qualitative and quantitative perspectives. Possible topics for presentations include, but are not limited to:
– Textual, monumental and/or aural modes of commemoration
– Digital forms of commemoration
– The future of post-war commemoration, including digital commemoration
– The politics of post-war commemoration
– Post-war commemoration and place/space, ecology and the environment
– Post-war memory and/or trauma
– Commemoration in relation to post-war displacement, migration, settlement and belonging
– Diasporic / exilic post-war commemoration
– Post-war commemoration and the body
– Comparative post-war commemoration
‘Post-war’ can relate to any armed conflict and we welcome submissions addressing commemoration across cultures and time periods. AV equipment will be available and you are welcome to use PowerPoint or other presentation software.
The conference is free to attend and will include lunch and refreshments.
How to apply
Please send an abstract of 250 words for a 20-minute paper and a short biography (max. 150 words) in a single Word document to postwarconference2018@gmail.com by Friday 23 March 2018. Applicants will be notified of the outcome in early April.
Travel bursaries
A number of travel bursaries of up to £300 will be available on a competitive basis. If you wish to apply for a travel bursary, please include a short paragraph (max. 300 words) in your application, detailing how your work fits with the themes of the Series and how your research will benefit from attending the Conference. Please itemise your estimated expenditure.