Call for Articles

Co-editors: Catherine Gilbert; Alison Atkinson-Phillips; Jorge Catalá Carrasco; Susannah Eckersley; Philippa Page; Laura Routley

This call invites the submission of abstracts related to the overarching theme of the 2023 Memory Studies Association annual conference: “Communities and Change”. This theme drew inspiration from host city Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s specific post-industrial material and social landscape, its longstanding commitment to social justice, and its status as a City of Sanctuary welcoming refugees. The conference brought together nearly 1,000 scholars exploring the ways in which places across the globe are shaped by their changing communities and through an ongoing engagement with memory and reinvention.

The theme of “Communities and Change” reflects the dynamism and diversity of Memory Studies as an expanding field. It is a topic that addresses both loss and trauma, but also points to new, dynamic opportunities to think differently about the past and the future. Community is interpreted in diverse ways and operates on multiple levels, from the familial to individual interest groups to more formalised communities, reaching across multiple locations and scales. Within communities and through the generations, memories are constantly being shaped and reshaped. Recent decades have also seen waves of cyclical crises forcing the movement of people as a result of ongoing and emerging conflicts, which have fuelled nationalistic discourses and rising populism, often rewriting the past to justify narratives of bonding but also of exclusion. Cities, regions, and countries have often been reshaped by economic collapse or boom, changing the make up of communities but also how they relate to place, memory, and traditions. We live in a time where local and global communities and memories are shifting rapidly and being dramatically reconfigured.

With this in mind, we invite submissions connected to the following areas:

• Memory, Activism and Social Justice
• The Coloniality and Decolonising of Memory
• Deindustrialisation and Reinventions
• Conflict, Violence and Memory
• Memory and Diverse Belongings
• Movement, Migration and Refugees
• Gendered memories
• Ecology and environmental memories

Timeline and Procedure:
The timeline for this special issue is very tight, so please only send a proposal if you are able to meet the below deadlines.

• Please send for consideration your abstract (500 words max) and a short biography (100 words max) in a single Word document to msa2023newcastle@gmail.com by Monday 27 November 2023.
• All abstracts will be reviewed by the editors and all applicants will be notified of the outcome of the review process by Friday 15 December 2023.
• Final submission of the completed articles will be Monday 26 February 2024.

This will be followed by double blind peer review and corrections, which will need to be completed by July 2024.

• The special issue is scheduled to be published in February 2025, issue 18.1.

For more information on the Memory Studies journal’s publishing policy and advice for authors, please consult the journal’s website: https://journals.sagepub.com/author- instructions/MSS#top

** Given the tight schedule for publication, we ask that you only submit an abstract if you are confident that you would be able to make the final submission date of Monday 26 February 2024.**