Tag Archives: monuments

CFP: Monuments, The Biennial Conference of the Nordic Association of American Studies

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25 – 27 April 2019 in Bergen, Norway

Submission deadline: 1 November 2018

Monuments construct the past in the present, and link it to a predetermined version of the future. Monuments tell singular and unified stories, acting as master narratives that impede other voices. Monuments have become some of America’s most important storytellers, giving form to power, but also to particular acts of resistance.

This is perhaps only to be expected, for the word “monument” bears within it the Latin mon, from monēre, which means “to remind,” but also means “to warn.” In its descriptive form “monumental” connotes something massive or imposing, something great in importance, but also expresses a sense of excess, of being overwhelmed. The word itself thus invites a chain of questions: What do monuments call to memory? What might they warn us against? What versions of events do they impose in presenting greatness? Who and what deserves recognition? How can monuments commemorate different or competing pasts? What should be done with monuments that uplift violent pasts?

The NAAS 2019 conference in Bergen on “Monuments” welcomes panel and paper proposals that address monuments and the monumental in relation to American literature, history, politics, media, art and popular culture, transnational and transcultural and comparative approaches. Keeping in mind that not all monuments are made of stone—Hemingway has been called a monument, political symbols and landscapes act as monuments, the literary canon and the Bible are monuments to Western culture—the list of different kinds of monuments is near endless. Some themes may be, but are not limited to:

Conceptualizations of the American past
Preservation and commemoration
Tradition and cultural heritage
Cultural perceptions, shifting attitudes towards the monument
Representation Memory and forgetting
Genre or aesthetic form
Naming
Landscapes, places and spaces
Myth
Resistance to the monument
Inscription
The non-monumental
False memories
Amnesia
Nostalgia
Imaginaries
Ossification
War
Architecture
Photography
Religion
Visibility/invisibility

Please send abstracts and panel proposals to NAASBergen@gmail.com by 15 Sept. 2018. Abstracts for individual panel presentations (20 minutes) should be no longer than 250 words; proposals for panels or workshops should be no longer than 500 words. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out in October.

The conference is open to scholars and students from all countries, but we offer lower registration fees to members of NAAS (Nordic Association for American Studies), EAAS (European Association for American Studies), and ASA (American Studies Association in the U.S.).

A conference website will be made available in the autumn. If you have any questions regarding the conference or your proposal before then, please write to the conference organizers at: NAASBergen@gmail.com.

Conference organizers:
Jena Habegger-Conti, Associate Professor
Western Norway University of Applied Sciences
President, American Studies Association of Norway

Asbjørn Grønstad, Professor
University of Bergen
Vice-President, American Studies Association of Norway

Lene Johannessen, Professor
University of Bergen
Committee Chair, American Studies Association of Norway

CfP: The First World War in Italy and Beyond: History, Legacy and Memory (1918–2018)

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30 November – 1 December 2018
Italian Institute of Culture, London

Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy

Download CfP: CFP – ASMI 2018

The conference will explore the history, legacy and memory of the First World War in Italy from 1918 to 2018. As the War was one of the formative experiences of the modern Italian nation, the aim is to place the conflict in a longer chronological perspective and to highlight its lasting impact from a range of viewpoints. Drawing on recent innovations in the historiography, the conference will shift focus away from the battlefields towards hitherto neglected areas of study, including the experience of civilians and everyday life, the transition from war to peace, and the post-war climate and reconstruction. It will shed light on how the memory of WWI shaped Italy’s national identity and served political ends during the Fascist period and after the Second World War. The intention is also to escape the confines of national historiography by placing Italy in comparative and transnational contexts. Thus, the centenary presents an opportunity to look with fresh eyes at the mark left by the War on the history, politics and society of Italy.

We welcome proposals from scholars working in a variety of disciplines including history, literature, film, politics, anthropology, art, economics, sociology and geography.

Panels might include, but are not limited to:
• The immediate aftermath of WW1 (1918–1922) and the rise of social conflict, political violence and Fascism
• The creation of the League of Nations and the emergence of pacifism, humanitarianism and internationalism
• The experience of veterans in the post-war period
• New historiographical approaches to the study of Italy and WW1
• Global, transnational and comparative perspectives
• Local, regional and national experiences
• Gender, both femininity and masculinity
• Family and societal ties
• Changes to ideas of nationhood, democracy, citizenship and community after WW1
• The legacy of WWI under Fascism
• Parallels between the aftermath of WW1 and the aftermath of WW2
• The material heritage of the War: monuments, memorials and cemeteries
• Italy’s commemorations of the centenary in national or transnational contexts

The organizers welcome proposals for individual papers and for panels composed of 3 speakers. They reserve the right to break up and re-structure proposed panels.

Confirmed keynote speakers:
Prof. Gunda Barth-Scalmani (University of Innsbruck)
Author of numerous works on Italian-Austrian relations and the experiences of women during WWI, including Ein Krieg – Zwei Schützengräben, Österreich – Italien und der Erste Weltkrieg in den Dolomiten 1915–1918 (Bozen 2005) and Militärische und zivile Kriegserfahrungen 1914–1918 (Innsbruck, 2010).

Dr. Marco Mondini (University of Padua/Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento)
Author of numerous bestselling books on Italy and WW1, including most recently Il Capo. La Grande Guerra del generale Luigi Cadorna (Il Mulino 2017) and La guerra italiana. Partire, raccontare, tornare 1914-18 (Il Mulino 2014). He is a frequent contributor to programmes on Rai Storia, e.g. http://www.raistoria.rai.it/articoli/cadorna-il-capo/32462/default.aspx

Please send an abstract of max. 250 words and a short biography to: asmi.conference1918@gmail.com
Abstracts can be both in English and in Italian.
The closing date for receipt of abstracts is 1 June 2018

Accepted speakers will be required to join ASMI, which includes subscription to the journal Modern Italy.

Organising Committee: Selena Daly (University College Dublin), Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti (University College London), Hannah Malone (Freie Universität Berlin), Martina Salvante (University of Warwick)

CfP: “War, the Body, and Communities”, German Studies Association 2018; “War and Violence Network”

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War experiences and legacies affect individual bodies and broader communities. War violates and traumatizes bodies as it simultaneously destroys and builds communities. War contributes different narratives about the body and communities in relation to conflict and violence. Our panel series explores themes that includes the forming and disciplining of bodies for war, the disfiguration of bodies during war, “disembodied” contemporary warfare, and the disappearances of the body during war. The body can carry the actual scars of violence and become a metaphor for the terrain of pain. The body can be a weapon as well as a victim of war; it can execute, document, archive, aesthetize, and politicize war. Wartime communities can develop from the idea of a shared “bodily” wartime experience. Communities represent a dynamic entity constructed by common encounters, attitudes, and emotions and can include victims, mourners, widows, protesters, veterans, survivors, perpetrators; and their respective representations, experiences, and negotiations with their own (or other) bodies. Papers could explore how war can build and undermine “war communities” and how aesthetic and historical works about war can shape a sense of community. Proposals can address the topic in the time span from the Medieval Ages to today.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

Militarizing bodies and shaping collectives
War wounds and victims, broken bodies, refugees
The image of the war hero and its role in nation building
War, fashion and uniforms, rationing and consumption
Sensing war, War and ecstasy
Literary works on war, body, and communities
Search for bodies and missing communities
Gender and the body and gendering (war) communities
Visual renderings and experience-making – enactments, films, monuments, memorials

We invite proposals that address research associated with the body and/or community within the German context. Such fields as History, Literary and Media Studies, Art and Cultural History, Visual, Film and Museum Studies, Musicology, Gender Studies and other disciplines.

Please note two important GSA rules: All panel participants including the commentator and moderator must be registered GSA members by February 10, 2017. No individual at the GSA Conference may give more than one paper/participate in a seminar or participate in more than two separate capacities.

Please send abstracts, brief c.v., and AV requests, if applicable, by Jan. 19, 2018 to both network coordinators Katherine Aaslestad (Katherine.Aaslestad@mail.wvu.edu) and Kathrin Maurer (kamau@sdu.dk) who will review paper proposals. All applicants will be informed by late January. This allows proposals which cannot be included in the network panels to be submitted directly to the GSA by the overall deadline of February, 15 2018.