Deadline: 5 May 2015
Conference Description
This interdisciplinary conference will focus on the notion of place in the more recent modernity of globalization and internationalization, with its many histories of movement, migration, transfer and transmission. The scheme of exile has been important for our understanding of modernity, which is defined as the transformation of the old and commonplace. The pace of social change in recent times seems, however, to bring about a different relation to place, perhaps also to be understood as non-place, defined as a space that does not necessarily hold meaning for us.
We invite paper proposals from the humanities, social sciences and environmental sciences to reflect on the relation to place or space in the ways that Eastern and Western Europe have been reshaped, contested and remembered in the transformations after 1989. In particular, this conference focuses on the Baltic Sea region and Eastern Europe, where Europe appeared as a place, a memory and a lodestar for integration and modernization. What have been the mechanisms and ideas conducting the transfers of goods, people, institutions and values in this new Europe? Is there a “spatial turn” in the study of these processes, with a growth of regionality as a return to a place? What is the relation to place in the experience of contemporary Eastern and Western Europe and how is it articulated in literature and in art, in memory and in exile cultures? What can the “memory boom” tell us about the relation to the places of Europe today?
We invite proposals for individual papers and/or panels. The deadline for all paper and panel proposals is 5 May, 2015. Proposals should include the full title and a brief abstract (250 words). Please include with your abstract a short biographical note (academic affiliation and full contact information). PhD students and younger scholars are particularly encouraged to participate in the conference. Individual papers will be assigned by the conference organizers (CBEES) to a panel according to the topic, and should be short enough to be presented in 15–20 minutes. Word-by-word reading of papers is strongly discouraged.
The Baltic and East European Graduate School (BEEGS) at Södertörn University will precede the conference with an afternoon event on 2 December to celebrate its 15th anniversary. All participants are invited to attend.
Please send your proposal to: cbeesconference@sh.se
Conference web site:
http://www.sh.se/annual_conference_cbees_2015
