Appel à communications/Convocatoria- Memory, Temporality and Experience

Le centre de recherche finlandais History of Experiences (HEX), situé à l’université de Tampere, organise du 11 au 13 mars 2024 sa sixième conférence annuelle. Elle portera sur le thème “Memory, Temporality and Experience”. Les activités de ce centre de recherches se déroulent autour de trois axes, “Lived Religion“, “Lived Nation” et “Lived Welfare State“, et ont donné lieu à plusieurs publications de rang international, dans le cadre d’une collection intitulée “Palgrave Studies in the History of Experiences” en collaboration avec l’éditeur Palgrave Macmillan. L’appel à communications en anglais est reproduit ci-dessous: la date limite est fixée au 28 novembre pour les propositions de panel, et au 1er février 2024 pour les présentations de posters de jeunes chercheurs.

El centro de investigación finlandés History of Experiences (HEX), en la universidad de Tampere, está organizando su sexta conferencia anual entre el 11 y el 13 de marzo de 2024, sobre la temática “Memory, Temporality and Experience”. Las actividades de dicho centro se desarrollan en torno a tres ejes principales, “Lived Religion“, “Lived Nation” y “Lived Welfare State“, y ya desembocaron en varias publicaciones de alcance internacional, en el marco de una colección títulada “Palgrave Studies in the History of Experiences” en colaboración con la editorial Palgrave Macmillan. Abajo se puede leer el texto de la convocatoria en inglés: las propuestas de paneles pueden enviarse hasta el 28 de noviembre de 2023, y las de pósteres de jovenes investigadores hasta el 1º de febrero de 2024.

Appel à communications/Convocatoria

Memory, Temporality and Experience
Sixth Annual Conference March 11-13, 2024
Research Council of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences, Tampere University

The new history of experience seeks to comprehend the complex, multidimensional relationships between history and experience. As a burgeoning field of study, it is self-reflective and dynamic, with scholars constantly refining their approaches, and indeed reassessing the notion of experience itself. To develop the history of experience into a robust historical approach, scholars continually ask probing questions regarding sources, concepts, methods, and methodologies. In this vein, the organisers of the sixth annual HEX conference have chosen to interrogate the concepts of memory and temporality as modes of experience. This thematic focus aims to encourage scholars to reflect on experience beyond its external traces, and to mine the more elusive spheres of the internal, the cognitive, and the unconscious. We are looking for panels and papers that consider how, or even if, memory and temporality are complicit in processes of experiencing; that is, how memory and temporality might influence, nurture, define, or disrupt individual and group experiences.

This theme will provoke some important and challenging questions, for example:

• how might experience influence ephemeral concepts such as memory and temporality?
• how might structures and understandings of time and memory shape experience?
• how does experience, or remembered experience, change over time and what conditions impact on the changes?
• how might one experience memory and temporality (materially, visually, physically, psychologically, emotionally, collectively, individually, institutionally – the list could go on) and what evidence can historians effectively use to capture this?
• what is the impact of situated contexts on what is remembered (or deemed worth remembering)?
• what role does historical consciousness have in selective memory, challenges to memory or experiences of the past?
• how might temporality affect ways of remembering and the experience of what is remembered (including forgetfulness, situated trauma, silence, repression, and lying or truth telling)?
• what methodologies are best suited to exploring the intersection of experience, memory, and temporality?

Panel Proposals and Individual Paper Proposals

The organisers invite scholars working both within the history of experiences (ancient, mediaeval, modern, from all regions of the world) to submit proposals. Contributions from disciplines other than history are warmly welcome, as long as they take a view on historical experience. We anticipate that a diversity of perspectives will be most effective in broadening our current conceptions of experience, gaining insight into the broader processes that impact it and expanding the pool of source materials deemed effective in the pursuit of historical experience. We encourage proposals for both coherent panels comprising three to four papers, or individual paper proposals.

Please submit your proposal by 28 November 2023 via this link according to the following instructions. All proposals MUST address the concept of experience in addition to memory and/or temporality. The conference will take place in person only.

For complete panels, send a joint 400-word abstract, together with brief bios and paper titles for each proposed speaker.

For individual papers, send a 250-word abstract together with a brief bio.

Online Video Poster Competition

We also invite submissions for an online video poster session and competition. We especially encourage submissions from doctoral students and early career researchers who cannot make it to Finland but who would like both to share their ideas and to discuss them with scholars working in the field. As per the conference theme, posters must directly engage with the concept of experience along with memory and/or temporality. The posters will be strictly 5 minutes maximum in length. Posters that fit the criteria will be uploaded to the HEX website before the conference where an associated discussion board will be available for commentary and critical discussion. A selection of posters will be chosen by a committee for a hybrid screening and discussion session at the conference. €To participate in the poster video competition, please send an email to hexconference@tuni.fi. We will send you detailed information on how to make and submit the video. The deadline for video posters is 1 February 2024.

For questions and more information, please write to hexconference@tuni.fi.

Keynote speakers

Professor Rebecca Clifford, Transnational and European History, Durham University

Professor Bart van Es, English Literature, St Catherine’s College, Oxford University

Dr Ulla Savolainen, Folklore studies, Department of Cultures, University of Helsinki

Bart van Es has also kindly agreed to direct a workshop on writing creative non-fiction as part of the conference program.

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