[Commlist] Call for Participants and Papers: Manifesting the 21st Century Manifesto in Nordic Public Spheres

*Call for Participants and Papers (Deadline 10th February 2023)*

**

*/Manifesting the 21st Century Manifesto in Nordic Public 
Spheres/**Conference and Workshop*

**

*Aarhus University, Denmark*

**

*20-21 April 2023*

The manifesto plays a unique role in Western public and political life. 
From the US Declaration of Independence to far-right terrorist 
manifestos, Silicon Valley start-up mission statements to the social 
movement manifestos of 20th century modernity, these declarative 
documents for a new world order exist both as a textual expression and 
as a response to historical and contemporary political landscapes. And 
yet, despite this rich text’s resurgence in the 21st century, the 
manifesto remains a critically unexamined artifact of modern 
deliberative democracies. In this tense political and social climate, 
this gap leaves a significant hole in understanding how social action is 
taking place in the 21st century mediatised West. Moreover, there is a 
critical need to explore the manifesto beyond Anglo-American neoliberal 
capitalist democracies, and to examine how it functions specifically in 
both national and regional Nordic public spheres. It is therefore these 
gaps that this conference and workshop aims to fill.

This call for papers is looking for participants for the inaugural 2-day 
conference and workshop of the international Manifesting the 21st 
Century Manifesto (MANIFEST) network. The idea is to bring together 
participants from the humanities and the social sciences in a 
comparative examination and applied inquiry of the manifesto as it 
functions in the West more broadly. This then will be used as the 
foundation to explore its specificities within national and regional 
Nordic landscapes. We therefore welcome presentations on a variety of 
key issues including, but not limited to:

  * What are the rhetorical capabilities of the manifesto as a genre?
  * Are manifestos solely a written text? What role does visuals,
    graphics, and other multimodal devices play in the persuasive
    capabilities of these texts?
  * How can manifestos generate social action in the networked public
    sphere?
  * What role does history and/or cultural memory play in the manifesto?
  * How is identity constituted through this type of text?
  * What are the intersections between manifestos and digital platforms?
  * What makes a manifesto a manifesto?
  * How can we read the new forms of solo manifestos?
  * Are there inherent differences amongst the Nordic countries that can
    be seen through their manifestos?
  * Does a twitter thread count as a manifesto?
  * What role does social media play in the spread of ideas that
    culminate in an official text?
  * How does the manifesto intersect with different political ideologies
    in the West?
  * How is it possible to measure or test what manifests do?
  * Does the manifesto, as both a genre and a text, look and interact
    differently in both individual and collective Nordic publics?



    MANIFEST already has committed participants from different Nordic
    universities across a number of fields including rhetoric, history
    of ideas, Nordic/Scandinavian studies, and linguistics. We are now
    recruiting further participants within both the humanities and
    social sciences for this two day event. The event is as follows:

  * The first day is a conference where participants can deliver a 15
    minute presentation addressing these questions to a larger audience
    including scholars and students from across Aarhus University.
    Presentations will then be followed by plenary discussion.
  * On the second day, a closed session workshop will see participants
    using the conversations from day one to explore this genre
    specifically in relation to Nordic publics and the welfare state as
    a unique political and cultural region within the West.


    The aims of the planned workshop are (a) to share ideas and research
    results related to manifestos; b) to establish an international
    network on manifesto research; c) to use this network to initiate
    work on shared projects and publications. The working language of
    MANIFEST is English.

    Funding for this event is provided through a grant from the ReNEW

<https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/reimagining-norden-in-an-evolving-world>(Reimagining
    the Nordics in an Evolving World) research hub. The event is free to
    attend, with three meals a day, refreshments, and an evening dinner
    on the 20th.


    *Application *
    Please send letters of interest, a 300 word abstract (if you wish to
    present) and a brief bio to Marcia Clare Allison (mca /at/ cc.au.dk)
    <mailto:(mca /at/ cc.au.dk)>by the *10th February 2023. *










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