Memory Studies Association—Chris Keith

Some readers of the Jesus Blog with an interest in memory studies may like to know about the Memory Studies Association, recently launched by Aline Sierp, Jenny Wuestenberg, and Jeffrey Olick. 

They have a website at www.memorystudiesassociation.org
and are getting ready to have a major conference in Copenhagen in January.  Although the deadline has formally passed, I have word that they're still accepting some proposals for papers:

Second Annual Conference of the Memory Studies Association

Copenhagen, 14-16 December 2017

Founded last year in Amsterdam, the Memory Studies Association (MSA) aims at institutionalizing memory studies as a research field that is able to provide fundamental knowledge about the importance and function of memories in the public and private realm. The MSA’s objective is to provide a central forum for developing, discussing, and exchanging ideas about the methodology and theory of the inter- and multi-disciplinary field of memory studies.

By addressing crucial questions about the challenges and future of memory studies, this year’s conference will continue the fruitful debates that began in Amsterdam. A starting point of our discussions is to further define the ‘third wave’ of memory studies: One of the central problems of memory studies today is to adjust to the increasing heterogeneity of remembering without losing sight of national and local memory formations. Even in our globalized world, legal and mental borders are far from dissolved. The growing number of nationalist movements in Europe point to the continued virility of the national framework of remembrance.

This conference wants to address “memory unbound” as well as specific personal, familial or national memories and their mutual interrelations. It seeks answers to questions such as: How can memory studies continue to conceptualize the deterritorialized, fluid and transnational aspects of collective memory without abolishing the validity of the founding ideas of memory studies? Acknowledging the fact that memories relate not only to the presence of the past but also to imaginations of the future, how can we define the productive power of memory? Should memory studies merely be perceived as descriptive or should it also have an impact on actual political debates?

Confirmed keynote speakers and participants of this conference include: Marianne Hirsch (Columbia University), filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer (“The Act of Killing” and “The Look of Silence”), Jan Gross (Princeton University), as well as Ann Rigney (University of Utrecht), Fionnuala Dillane (University College of Dublin), Stef Craps (University of Ghent), Daniel Levy (Stony Brook University, New York), Siobhan Kattago (University of Tartu), Astrid Erll (Goethe-University Frankfurt), Jeffrey Olick (University of Virginia), Emilie Pine (University College of Dublin), Barbara Törnquist-Plewa (University of Lund), William Hirst (The New School, New York), Wulf Kansteiner (University of Aarhus).

 The Memory Studies Association aims to be the central forum for scholars from around the world and across disciplines who are interested in memory studies. Its goal is to further establish and extend the status of memory studies as a field.  As such, this second meeting of the association invites all those interested in being part of this important emerging enterprise. As an interdisciplinary forum for memory studies, we warmly welcome contributions from various research fields and explicitly invite transdisciplinary approaches.

Submissions of papers and panels can address but are not limited to:

• Memory of migration of refugees and workers
• Traumatic memories
• Ethics of memory
• Memory and the media
• Memory and the global
• Entangled or multidirectional memories.
• Neuropsychological approaches to memory
• Gendered memories
• Geography and the memory of sites/spaces
• Sociological approaches to memory
• Memory in the digital age
• Memory and cultural heritage
• Teaching memory studies

We would like to encourage both the submission of “traditional” academic papers and full panels, as well as innovative proposals for workshops, film screenings, roundtable discussions and more. Please contact the organizers if you would like to discuss ideas or have questions.

The submission system is now open and will close on 1 July 2017.

You can find more information about the conference and venue at: http://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/call-for-papers-2017/.

 Further questions can be addressed to Tea Sindbæk Andersen nxr333@hum.ku.dk or to Jessica Ortner ortner@hum.ku.dk