[ecrea] CFP Cultural Memory Conference

Call for Papers and Call for Panel Proposals

The Centre for Culture and Cultural Studies (CCCS)

The Balkan Network for Culture and Culture Studies (BNCCS)

Annual Conference 2013: “Cultural Memory”

September 5-6, 2013, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia

The deadline for proposals is February 1st, 2013

The Centre for Culture and Cultural Studies (CCCS) and The Balkan 
Network for Culture and Culture Studies (BNCCS) will organize the first 
of many to follow, annually-held conferences, under the overarching 
theme “Cultural Memory”.

The interest in the past, and consequently, the interest in collective 
and individual memory, is quite pertinent to our overall present-day 
research interests. Finding a way to articulate and express individual 
and collective identities, which find themselves under the undeniable 
pressure of globalization, transition and consumer processes, is 
becoming increasingly important. On the one hand, in today’s 
contemporary, post-modern societies, the various ethnic groups call for 
recognition, which in turn demonstrates a need for the construction of 
their pasts, and thus, their cultural memories. On the other hand, if 
national, regional, religious and/or local cultural identities present 
today were portrayed as more or less stable entities, today they may be 
observed as nothing more than events, changes or conflicts usually 
associated with secularization, industrialization, globalization, 
migration, or many other political, economic, cultural and/or religious. 
>From this stance, culture is seen as shaped under the influence of 
processes that stand in constant mutual tension. In other words, it is 
located in a state of constant negotiation with the newly present 
conditions, values, ideas and beliefs, set in circumstances whence the 
previously dominant segments are no longer present. In such processes, 
the term memory occupies a central role.

The objective of this first conference is twofold: namely, to contribute 
to the study of cultural memory by unlocking narratives about the past 
(and their canonization), and offer relevant critical observations on 
the manifestations of cultural memory that are not essentially 
‘narratives’. This approach provides a kind of multidisciplinary and 
interdisciplinary access to cultural memory taken from various perspectives.

In this context, we are faced the following questions: how do we recall, 
remember and forget? What stories are ‘permitted’ and which are 
‘forbidden’? How does the past determine the present and shape the 
future? How do the various discourses of the past determine the social 
and personal identities? How are our deepest emotions, desires and 
fantasies articulated in the present through the discursive space of 
memory? What are the relations between memory and monuments, archives 
and museums? How can we understand the dual nature of monuments: as 
tools of ideologically driven memory (fixed memory) and/or as constant 
sources of creative construction and opening up of memory? Does 
technological development influence the process of remembering the past? 
What are the implications of a digitalization of memory? What kind of 
history is created by the massive use of digital technologies (i.e., 
online archives that are encoding/decoding their users’ memories in 
virtual space)? How do the systems used for production affect the ways 
that use, protect and work with memory? In what ways is cultural tourism 
associated with memory? How does it reflect the local and global 
histories in terms of which narratives are being produced and consumed?

On that note, individual and collective memory within the processes of 
creating identities provides for the contemporary researcher 
indispensable links to the myriad present-day realities that are at the 
same time quite problematic. This duality manifests itself in the 
creative and conceptual forms of expression. Hence, the aim of the 
conference is to bring closer the various aspects applied in studying 
cultural memory. The conference aims at fostering a critical dialogue 
beyond the boundaries set by various disciplines, thus papers from 
various disciplines and fields are most welcomed, including art history, 
literature, anthropology, architecture, philosophy, political science, 
sociology, cultural geography, cultural studies, media and film studies, 
ethnology and folklore, economics, history, heritage studies, museum 
studies, landscape studies, leisure studies, tourism studies, transport 
studies and urban/spatial planning.

Possible topics could include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

Cultural Memory and Identity: family memory; biographical and 
autobiographical memory; the ‘homå’; immigration; the migrant; borders; 
nationalism; ethnicity; history and changing historical narratives; 
tradition; violence; trauma and terror; forgiveness; memories of 
transitions: important personal and national events.

Cultural Memory and Politics: the use of propaganda; the use of cultural 
memory; the politics of cultural memory; authority; resistance; creating 
cultural memory; collective remembering and forgetting.

Cultural Memory and Space/Place: architecture; geography (cartography); 
the city and urbanization; the use of nature in the collective memory; 
transformed places; monuments, archives, museums.

Cultural Memory and Social Institutions/Cultural Products: myth; 
religion; art/literature presentation; language; clashing memories, 
popular culture.

Cultural Memory and Everyday Life: rituals; bodily practices; nostalgia.

Mediated Memories: cultural representations; mass media/digitalized 
memories; virtual memories.

Cultural Memory and Tourism: ‘imagined routes’ (mythic highways and 
meta-narratives); crossing boundaries; war itineraries; violence and 
displacement; consumerism.

Papers, creative projects, and other non-traditional presentations 
exploring the aforementioned topics are also welcomed.

The Conference will be held on September 5-6, 2013 in Skopje, Republic 
of Macedonia.

Please submit your proposals to (conference /at/ cultcenter.net) by February 
1st, 2013.

Submissions should include a 250-300 word abstract, keywords and a brief 
bio, as well as a contact address.

The paper proposals should be prepared filling in a paper form.

Please feel free to contact Loreta Georgievska-Jakovleva 
((lgeorgievska /at/ yahoo.com)) or Mishel Pavlovski 
((mpavlovski /at/ iml.ukim.edu.mk)) with any interim questions.

Notifications of acceptance would come no later than February 15th, 2013.

Abstracts will be published and made available with the conference 
materials. Full papers will be published in the peer-rewieved journal 
“???????/Culture”.

We are seeking proposals for panels within the scope of the Conference

Panels are organized by internationally recognized experts aiming to 
bring together researchers on focused topics for an interactive 
discussion among the panel members and the participants. Panels are an 
important component of Annual Conference 2013. Panel members are 
researchers who have done well-known or controversial work related to 
the theme of the panel. Researchers interested in organizing a special 
session are invited to submit a formal proposal to 
(conference /at/ cultcenter.net) by February 1st, 2013.

Before submitting a panel proposal, the organizer of a panel is expected 
to contact all the proposed panel members and get their agreement to 
serve as a panel member. A list of questions to be discussed in the 
panel should be made available to all the panel members well ahead of 
time for them to prepare their response. Each panel typically allows a 
certain amount of time for each panel member to present their response 
before an open discussion is opened.

The panel proposals should be prepared filling in a panel form.

Fees:

Early registration (till April 1st, 2013): € 40 (for members of The 
Balkan Network for Culture and Cultural Studies - € 20)

Late registration (till August 15th, 2013): € 60 (for members of The 
Balkan Network for Culture and Cultural Studies - € 40)

On-site registration (or after August 15th, 2013): € 80 (for members of 
The Balkan Network for Culture and Cultural Studies - € 60)

The registration fee includes the conference materials, the publication 
of the abstract and the papers, refreshment breaks, a welcome dinner for 
all participants of the Conference.



The Centre for Culture and Cultural Studies web site: 
http://www.cultcenter.net/

Conference web site: http://www.cultcenter.net/conf2013.php







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