[ecrea] CfP : Narratives of the crisis: myths and realities of contemporary society

Narratives of the crisis: myths and realities of contemporary society

International Conference, Thessaloniki, June 24

- 26, 2015, Call for papers.

Narratives are present in all societies. They are present in myths, 
legends, news, rumors, in

historical and artistic texts, in politics, in everyday conversation. 
Stories are able to construct

reality. As Roland Barthes suggested (1966) the most important issue is 
to describe the code

by which the narrator and the reader are signified in a narrative. In 
this sense, an author is not

the one who invents a narrative but the one who possesses best the code 
used by the

participants. The different social discourses are supposed to reveal 
what a society considers

as "natural", as requiring no further explanation (the so called "common 
sense" used by media

discourses). This kind of narrative coincides with the social 
representations of the audience

and even if this is not always the case, the social subjects normally 
try to reduce the distance

between the information received and their attitudes: strategies are 
thus elaborated in order

to maintain a dominant way of thinking.

Narrative analysis has become fundamental for the social sciences, and 
especially for

sociology. Myth cannot always be clearly differentiated from "reality" 
in the social discourse

(fiction seems essential to the "reproduction" of the facts): it is 
necessary to be understood in

relation with the narrated reality.

The "Narratives of crisis: myths and realities" International Conference 
aims to record and

analyze the myths which narrate the economic crisis in Europe and 
particularly in Greece, and

investigate the ways media and the diverse political and social 
discourses represent the crisis.

The Conference is organized by the AISLF, the ISA-RC14, the Aristotle 
University of

Thessaloniki, the University of Macedonia, the Ecclesiastic University 
of Thessaloniki, the

Municipality of Thessaloniki and the French Institute of Thessaloniki, 
in collaboration with the

Centre of Sociology of Nantes, the Hellenic Sociological Society and the 
Institute for

Community Rehabilitation.

The Organizers invite contributions (in French, Greek or English) from 
the whole spectrum of

social and political sciences, media studies and the study of 
contemporary everyday life.

Please send abstract proposals of c. 250 words, including affiliation 
and contact information,

to (narrativesofcrisis /at/ gmail.com) until Thursday, January 15, 2015.

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