Why remember? How to remember? What to remember? And what gets forgotten? These and others questions are part of an exploration that has been taking place across multiple disciplines, from anthropology, sociology, media, and area studies, to race and gender studies, history, literature, and art. Translating Memory and Remembrance across the Disciplines, a year-long conference and workshop sponsored by SUNY’s Conversation in the Disciplines program, seeks to bring together scholars from across disciplines and academic institutions to generate collaborations, foment new queries, discover new methodologies, and build institutional bridges among scholars of memory, forgetting, and commemoration.

The conference will have two sessions:

Session I - October 8-9, 2015: Questions of Memory and Remembrance
KEYNOTE: Marianne Hirsch (William Peterfield Trent Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University)

Session II - March 2016: Problematizing Memory and Remembrance KEYNOTE: To Be Announced

For the first session, topics might include but are not limited to:

How are we approaching the study of memory? What are the disciplinary limitations, barriers and challenges? Can we look at memory from interdisciplinary lenses?
How does gender manifest in remembering and forgetting?
What opportunities, limitations, and affordances are provided by concrete (memorials, museums) and digital sites of memory?
How do educational materials and processes (textbooks, standardized exams, standardized curricula) facilitate remembering and forgetting?
In what mediums, genres, spaces, and communities does memory manifest?
What roles do photography, documentary and feature film, and other visual platforms play in remembering?
How can feminist or critical race scholarship shed light on what’s remembered, by whom, and to what ends?
What methodological challenges are we facing in the current study of memory and remembrance? Are we entering a new phase in memory studies?
In what ways is memory a place for political struggle? How does this struggle change through different discursive and visual practices?
How does memory get disciplined through institutional (academic, bureaucratic, archival) apparatuses? What kinds of structures are in place for these disciplining practices?
What is the place of memory in discussions about subjectivity, agency, and social transformation?
What are the roles of the traumatic, the repressed, and censorship (subjective and institutional) in the understanding and representation of any given present?
What are the relationships between memory, performance, embodiment and the archive?
How does/could memory become a place of convergence for traditionally segregated practices of social intervention?

Format

The conference will consist of two formats: Themed panels and Workshops

In the themed panels, scholars will present their work to the full audience with the opportunity for a Q&A to follow.

In the small-group workshops, scholars will present research projects in progress to other participants to receive substantial feedback on their projects from other scholars. These workshops will provide an overview of the range of methods, questions, and literatures for scholars of memory studies.

Submissions for First Session

We invite scholars of memory and remembrance to submit abstracts of completed projects (for panels) as well as works in progress (for workshops). Please send abstracts of 250-300 words to Roberto Vélez-Vélez (velezr@newpaltz.edu) by August 7th, 2015. Your submission should identify the format of interest (panel or workshop), include the name(s) of the author(s), the title of the project, and its status (e.g. completed project, work in progress).

Applicants will be notified of acceptance by August 21st, 2015. Workshop participants will be asked to submit an extended abstract before the conference to facilitate discussion and feedback. We will consider a range of approaches, disciplines and cases to ensure a robust and productive experience for all.

A separate call for abstracts will be sent for the second session in January 2016.