Conference Searching for memory between the mind and the world

What is memory? Is it a function of the mind, the result of a socio-historical process, of developing cultural meanings, or of something else all together? Where is it to be found? And how can it be uncovered for research? Why should it be researched? Which interactions can be discerned between memory and history? And is the interdisciplinary study of memory a form of productive difference or oecumenic integration?

The LIMS – Interdepartmental Laboratory Memory and Society is pleased to announce its international conference at the University of Trento. The conference will take place from August 28 until August 30, 2024. It will aim at fueling a debate about the possible intersections and convergences between cognitive, collective, cultural and historical approaches to memory in the humanities and social sciences.

They believe that now is a timely moment to (re)formulate answers to the fundamental questions asked above. The field of memory studies is increasingly institutionalizing with its own association and dedicated journals, handbooks, networks, labs and research centers. It is highly necessary to return to the fundamental questions of the field and see if we have theoretically innovated while memory studies have been expanding and institutionalizing. At the same time, we believe that the theoretical, epistemological and methodological differences between cognitive, cultural and historical approaches will keep on informing the field moving forward. These differences need to be addressed and debated. This conference aims to offer a venue for that debate.

The conference organizers are inviting paper presentations that offer innovative theoretical and methodological answers to the broad theoretical questions asked above. By bringing scholars working within the respective traditions together in a series of roundtables and panels, this conference’s aim is to figure out what the central debates are that move the field of memory studies, and what exactly the interdisciplinary conversation is in which memory studies scholars are engaged.

Timeline and Procedure

Please send your 300-word abstracts for 15-minute papers and 150-word bio to lab.lims@unitn.it by November 30th, 2023. Selected participants will be informed by Dec. 20th, 2023.

Confirmed roundtable speakers: Berber Bevernage, Aline Cordonnier, Sarah Gensburger, Wulf Kansteiner, Hannes Obermair, Jeffrey K. Olick, Valerie Rosoux, John Sutton, Jeremy Yamashiro.

The conference is part of a 6-day Summer School on Memory Studies for which the Call for Participants will be launched in early December 2023. The conference is organized by Giorgia Proietti (University of Trento, giorgia.proietti@unitn.it) and Thomas Van de Putte (King’s College London, thomas.1.van_de_putte@kcl.ac.uk).

Conference fee: 100 euros.

Venue: University of Trento (Department of Sociology and Social Research; Department of Humanities)

For the full call of applications, please check out the link.