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<font size=4 color="#0000FF">of interest to anybody ? Please pass
on as you wish - cheers - Chris <no need to reply><br><br>
</font><font size=4>From: Aline Sierp<br>
Subject: CfP: Politics of Experience: Theorizing the politics of the
past<br><br>
CALL FOR PAPERS<br><br>
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<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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?<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br>
Applicants are encouraged (but not restricted) to discuss for example the
following themes in their presentations:<br><br>
* What is defined as memory, past or history, and
how?<br>
* What kind of struggles are there between experience,
memory and history?<br>
* How subjective experience and objective facts become
enmeshed?<br>
* How and in what kind of discourses subjective memory
and experience are (ab)used as factual evidence instead of academic
historiography?<br>
* What kind of experiences and memories are
marginalized?<br>
* How is media involved in practices that repeat
certain experiences and memories to the extent that they override factual
evidence?<br>
* Whose memories are allowed to override
historiography? With what consequences?<br>
* What are the connections between party politics and
use of experience in constructing political agendas?<br>
* Is there a possibility for "over-national
common" at the level of the EU?<br>
* How political memoirs/memories of politicians
function as basis for truth claims?<br>
* 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?<br><br>
Please send your abstracts (max. one page) by June 15th at the latest to
Jouni Tilli (jouni.a.tilli@jyu.fi) and Mikko Jakonen
(mikko.p.jakonen@jyu.fi).<br><br>
The final papers (10-30 pages) are due at the end of September.<br><br>
ORGANISERS: Finnish Centre of Excellence in Political Thought and
Conceptual Change (University of Jyväskylä)<br>
CONTACTS: Jouni Tilli (jouni.a.tilli@jyu.fi) and Mikko Jakonen<br>
(mikko.p.jakonen@jyu.fi)<br><br>
---<br>
Dr. Aline Sierp<br>
Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site<br>
Alte Römerstr. 75<br>
85221 Dachau<br>
Germany<br>
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