Deadline for submissions 15 May 2012
The Languages and Cultures Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota (LCMND) and the University of Manitoba invite to the 2012 interdisciplinary and international conference on
“Languages and Cultures of Conflicts and Atrocities”
in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada), October 11-13, 2012
Keynote Speakers
James Dawes (Macalester College): Dr. Dawes, a scholar of American and Comparative Literature, is Director of the Program in Human Rights and Humanitarianism at Macalester College and specializes in literary and aesthetic theory, international law and human rights, trauma, and war studies. He is the author of That the World May Know: Bearing Witness to Atrocity (Harvard UP 2007) and The Language of War (Harvard UP 2002).
Alison Landsberg (George Mason University): Dr. Landsberg, a scholar in History and Art History, specializes in memory studies and U.S. history, including early cinema, race and self-making, museums and the installation of memory. She is the author of Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture (Columbia UP 2004)
Jill Scott (Queen’s University): Dr. Scott, a scholar of German and Comparative Literature, specializes in studies in conflict resolution, forgiveness and reconciliation, the social dynamics of mourning and grief, transitional and restorative justice, as well as in law and literature. She is the author of A Poetics of Forgiveness (Palgrave 2010) and of Electra after Freud (Cornell UP 2005).
The conference encourages papers which seek to understand how to represent war, racial and ethnic conflict, genocide and other atrocities, terrorism and human rights can be expressed, represented and remembered. Possible topics include:
- collective, national, and transnational memory of war and violent conflicts
- the representation and remembrance of wars and genocides from antiquity to the present
- the remembrance of the Holocaust and World War II (its influence on the representation of other wars and genocides)
- the representation of human rights and human rights violations
- indigenous rights and right violations / indigenous genocide
- relation between representation and transitional / restorative justice
- learning through representation
- aspects of witnessing, victimhood, and perpetratorship
- expression of individual and collective trauma
- knowledge and truth about conflicts and atrocities: possibilities and limitations
- authenticity in representing conflicts and atrocities
- immersive experiences of violence and atrocities
Papers are welcomed that discuss representations in literature, film, photography, museums, memorial culture, architecture, autobiography, the Internet and other digital media, oral and written history, everyday practices and rituals.
Scholars from all disciplines across the Humanities and Social Sciences are invited to participate in the conference. Sessions will be organized in English and French. As per LCMND tradition, papers on other topics will be considered.
Graduate students are welcome. The conference organizers intend to establish a small travel grant fund for graduate students on a competitive basis (approx. $200 per student).
Selected papers will be invited to contribute to a publication after the conference.
Please submit your proposal electronically to jaeger@umanitoba.ca by 15 May 2012. It should contain the title and an approx. 250-300-word abstract of the paper you are proposing; your name, institutional affiliation, and email address; and a brief statement (no more than 100 words) listing your academic background and publications.
There will be an anonymous peer-review of all proposals by an interdisciplinary committee of University of Manitoba and University of Winnipeg experts. Participants will be notified by 15 June 2012.
All inquiries and submissions should be sent to:
Dr. Stephan Jaeger, Department of German and Slavic Studies, University of Manitoba, jaeger@umanitoba.ca
Conference venue: University of Manitoba (Fort Garry Campus) and Inn at the Forks (conference hotel), right next to the building of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights
The Conference will begin on Thursday early evening (Oct. 11) with a keynote address and end on Saturday (Oct. 13) around 3:30 p.m.
Conference Committee
-Adina Balint-Babos (French Studies, University of Winnipeg)
-Elena Baraban (Slavic Studies, University of Manitoba)
-Catherine Chatterley (History, University of Manitoba)
–Stephan Jaeger (German Studies, University of Manitoba), chair / LCMND President
-Adam Muller (English and Comparative Literature and Film, University of Manitoba)
-Andrew Woolford (Sociology, University of Manitoba)
