[ecrea] CFP on Publics Formation

>CALL FOR PAPERS: HERITAGE AND PRACTICES OF 
>PUBLIC FORMATION: A Special Issue of the International
>Journal of Heritage Studies
>
>The International Journal of Heritage Studies 
>invites submissions for a special
>theme issue devoted to a critical consideration 
>of the implications of heritage
>practices in regard to the re-articulation of 
>existing publics and the formation
>of new ones.
>
>Those who think heritage is only about the past 
>have got it wrong. Practices of
>heritage are always about the future. Such practices are inherently implicated
>in enduring questions regarding the viable substance of social life, questions
>which include the problem of human connection across historically structured
>differences of time and place. Heritage practices present an arena of social
>participation. They not only offer meanings and affect that help consolidate
>exiting social solidarities, but they also offer the possibility of new
>connections among diverse people, connections essential for the continual
>renewal of democratic life and the attainment of environmental sustainability
>in an increasingly complex and interdependent world.
>
>This issue of IJHS will be devoted to 
>discussions of heritage practice that move
>beyond the notion of a public as an identifiable 
>pre-existing set of people who
>form the potential audience for any given heritage event and who are then
>reminded of their connections to each other 
>through their collective attention.
>In these circumstances, previously constituted identities and/or interests are
>often invoked to explain the thoughts and feelings that tie people to each
>other, establishing their willingness to accept a given normative basis for
>shared values and institutions. Differently from 
>this concern with how heritage
>practices are implicated in the reproduction of existing social relations, for
>this issue we are encouraging explorations that start with the idea that as
>plural formations, publics may be initiated and consolidated when strangers
>come to recognize new shared interests and affinities. Thus our focus is the
>way diverse sets of people engage with various forms of both tangible and
>intangible heritage forging relationships that were not pre-existing.
>
>When heritage practices are implicated in this moment of the making (or
>re-making) of collectivities, something of what Hannah Arendt called
>world-making happens. In such moments, through engagements with
>representations of the past and each other, varied people may come to
>understand themselves in new ways as members of a public in formation. An
>important consequence of considering heritage practices on such terms is that
>it extends the manner in which such practices may be understood to be both
>political and pedagogical. More concretely stated, heritage practices within
>but not limited to museums, urban landscapes, internet web sites, tourist
>sites, monuments and memorials, as well as engagements with music, dance,
>drama, craft and art may all contribute to the formation of new publics and
>hence social and political re-formation of everyday life.
>
>
>For this special issue IJHS we are calling for papers concerned with how
>heritage practices provoke the conditions that 
>enable the existence of publics,
>and contribute to their plurality, historicity, stability/instability, and
>relationship with each other. Such papers would likely consider not only what
>it means to be with others in new public formations but as well, they may
>address the material and spatial conditions that enable and limit their coming
>into being. Further, consideration might also be given to the substantive
>relation of new public formations to existing State forms and global
>ideologies. IJHS calls on scholars to consider the potential of heritage
>practices for enriching public landscapes, engendering collective experience
>and insight, inciting debates and democratic practices, and creating new forms
>of human solidarity. Papers should aim to reevaluate and reposition ideas of
>the public, placing heritage within contemporary contexts and concerns.
>
>Please submit paper proposals (abstracts of up 
>to 300 words) by June 1, 2008 to
>the issue's editors Roger I. Simon ((rsimon /at/ oise.utoronto.ca)) and Susan Ashley
>((sashl /at/ yorku.ca)). Completed manuscripts will be due September 30, 2008.
>Potential contributors will be interested to know that Routledge has expressed
>an interest in publishing the special issue in book form once it has been
>published by the IJHS.
>
>THE EDITORS:
>Roger I. Simon is a Professor in the Department 
>of Sociology and Equity Studies
>at the University of Toronto. He is the Faculty Director of the Centre for
>Media and Culture in Education and Director of the Testimony and Historical
>Memory Project at OISE/UT. Simon has written broadly on critical approaches to
>cultural pedagogy most recently focusing on the areas of public history and
>museum studies. His research and writing 
>addresses questions of the pedagogical
>and ethical dimensions of practices of cultural memory. This work is part of
>Simon's on-going exploration of the intersections of social and political
>theory, cultural practice, and pedagogy in regard to the project of securing a
>public sphere enabling a just and compassionate society. His recent
>publications include articles in Museum and Society, Museum Management and
>Curatorship, and the Journal of Museum Education. His most recent book is The
>Touch of the Past: Remembrance, Learning and Ethics published by Palgrave
>MacMillan 2005.mailto:(rsimon /at/ oise.utoronto.ca)
>
>Susan Ashley is a SSHRC-CGS doctoral candidate 
>in the Communication and Culture
>program at York University in Toronto. She has had 20 years of experience in
>the heritage field as a front-line interpreter, program and exhibit planner,
>and consultant, working with public heritage sites across Canada. She has
>published in IJHS, Museum & Society, the 
>Canadian Journal of Communication, and
>various heritage professional journals.
>
>

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Nico Carpentier (Phd)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.56
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.36.84
Office: 5B.401a
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Katholieke Universiteit Brussel - Catholic University of Brussels
Vrijheidslaan 17 - B-1081 Brussel - Belgium
&
Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis
Boulevard du Jardin Botanique 43  - B-1000 Brussel - Belgium
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Sponsored links ;)
----------------------------
NEW BOOKS OUT
Understanding Alternative Media
by Olga Bailey, Bart Cammaerts, Nico Carpentier
(December 2007)
http://mcgraw-hill.co.uk/html/0335222102.html
----------------------------
Participation and Media Production. Critical Reflections on Content Creation.
Edited by Nico Carpentier and Benjamin De Cleen
(January 2008)
<http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Participation-and-Media-Production--Critical-Reflections-on-Content-Creation1-84718-453-7.htm>http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Participation-and-Media-Production--Critical-Reflections-on-Content-Creation1-84718-453-7.htm 

----------------------------
European Communication Research and Education Association
Web: http://www.ecrea.eu
----------------------------
ECREA's Second European Communication Conference
Barcelona, 25-28 November 2008
http://www.ecrea2008barcelona.org/
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E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
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