Fwd - [CLHLWR] CfP: Politics of Experience: Theorizing the politics of the past, Berlin conference

[Chris]

of interest to anybody ?  Please pass on as you 
wish - cheers - Chris <no need to reply>

From: Aline Sierp
Subject: CfP: Politics of Experience: Theorizing the politics of the past

CALL FOR PAPERS

Politics of Experience: Theorizing the politics 
of the past The Fifth Doctoral Symposium on the 
Politics of the Past Finnland-Institut in 
Deutschland, Berlin, 11th & 12th October 2012

Existing research on the politics of the past 
does not pay particular attention to theory. 
Instead, the focus is on historical and 
microhistorical case studies and how the past is 
present in various situations. Such an approach 
is appropriate for historiography but 
insufficient for political analysis. While 
analysing power, we encounter several phenomena 
that deal with (in one way or another) the 
politics of the past. The problem is, however, 
how to grasp, both theoretically and 
methodologically, the complex use of the past in politics.

Considering political analysis of the past, we 
are continuously faced with several crucial 
dilemmas. How agents collide with different 
aspects of the past, memory and remembering 
entangled with existing power structures? How is 
it possible to politicize past events, recall 
forgotten histories and experiences or 
rhetorically dispute existing truths concerning 
the past?  How social and political discourses 
pertaining to the past are constructed in 
everyday practices of politics? What kind of past 
or memories become history? What kind of 
resources histories and historiography offer for 
political agents and power? How neo-liberalism 
for example benefits from certain histories and 
how they are produced to sustain its hegemony?

Today experience has become the central figure of 
history political speech. The importance of 
individual experience seems to easily refute the 
existing knowledge about the economic system, 
social reality and most importantly, the ways 
democratic politics has been conducted. In 
addition, collective experiences for example at 
the national level are in crisis. All in all, the 
rise of individual experience has resulted in the 
fact that the creation of "common" is difficult - 
there is no room for common experience.  The 
crucial implication is that the foundation of 
modern politics, the common, is jeopardized.

The aim of this symposium is to provide the 
participants a possibility to theorize the 
politics of the past. Our interest is especially 
related to the political uses of the concept of experience.
Applicants are encouraged (but not restricted) to 
discuss for example the following themes in their presentations:

  *   What is defined as memory, past or history, and how?
  *   What kind of struggles are there between experience, memory and history?
  *   How subjective experience and objective facts become enmeshed?
  *   How and in what kind of discourses 
subjective memory and experience are (ab)used as 
factual evidence instead of academic historiography?
  *   What kind of experiences and memories are marginalized?
  *   How is media involved in practices that 
repeat certain experiences and memories to the 
extent that they override factual evidence?
  *   Whose memories are allowed to override 
historiography? With what consequences?
  *   What are the connections between party 
politics and use of experience in constructing political agendas?
  *   Is there a possibility for "over-national common" at the level of the EU?
  *   How political memoirs/memories of 
politicians function as basis for truth claims?
  *   Taking into consideration vastness and 
diversity of the field, would it be possible to 
"teach" analysis of the politics of the past in a 
situation that seems to focus solely on the unique individual experience?

Please send your abstracts (max. one page) by 
June 15th at the latest to Jouni Tilli 
(jouni.a.tilli at jyu.fi) and Mikko Jakonen (mikko.p.jakonen at jyu.fi).

The final papers (10-30 pages) are due at the end of September.

ORGANISERS: Finnish Centre of Excellence in 
Political Thought and Conceptual Change (University of Jyväskylä)
CONTACTS: Jouni Tilli (jouni.a.tilli at jyu.fi) and Mikko Jakonen
(mikko.p.jakonen at jyu.fi)

---
Dr. Aline Sierp
Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
Alte Römerstr. 75
85221 Dachau
Germany
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