The next conference of ISCH will be this September in Mainz, Germany.
16– 19 September 2020
“Cultures of Participation and Belonging”
CFP DEADLINE: 15 January 2020
Confirmed keynote speakers:
Panikos Panayi (School of Humanities, De Montfort University Leicester); Nicholas Terpstra (Department of Italian Studies, University of Toronto)
The International Society for Cultural History invites paper and panel proposals for its 2020 annual conference on “Cultures of Participation and Belonging.”
At the latest since 2015, the self-image of the European states as open societies-open for all -is under massive pressure. Not only the so-called “refugee crisis”, but also the discussion about core values of the European culture have shown that the culture of participation and belonging – once regarded as backbone of the “new” Europe after 1990 – are questioned and under attack from different directions.
Therefore, the terms of ‘participation’ and ‘belonging’ vs. ‘exclusion’ have formed public and political debates more than any other terms have in the last years. While ‘participation’ is primarily a virulent topic in educational politics and institutions, the term ‘belonging’ is central to the discussion of practices of enclosure and expulsion foremost in the contexts of domestic and security politics. The perceived current significance and the highly emotional discourse have disguised the fact that inclusion and belonging are phenomena of human societies, which overlap time, space and different media. These phenomena are also an important issue for the understanding and interpretation of one’s world.
Furthermore, cultures of participation and belonging are a crucial factor for the stability of given societies. However, today we experience some of the possible consequences for the social and political system if these cultures are under pressure. Therefore, the historical development, the forms and consequences of such cultures will be at the center of the ISCH conference in 2020. The objective of the conference is to shine a spotlight on the question regarding the forms and narratives of phenomena of belonging and their opposite (non-belonging, exclusion, discrimination, etc.) in specific historical constellations and/or contemporary literature, art, film, etc.
Topics may include (but are by no means limited to):
*Locations of belonging
*Intentions of (self)exclusion
*Socio-economic reasons for exclusion
*Forms of affiliation and membership
*Discrimination (positive and negative)
*Shaping identities
*Narratives of exclusion and/or belonging
*Knowledge and Belonging
*Relationship between scientific discourse and common knowledge on exclusion or belonging
*Methods of enclosure, expulsion and sorting
*Representations of belonging in art and literature
In addition, we warmly welcome papers or panels discussing:
*Theory and methodology of cultural history
*New approaches to cultural history
*The history of cultural history
This year the society also welcomes poster presentations by PhD-Students, who would like to showcase their dissertation projects.
Presentations should be no more than 20 minutes and delivered in English.
Individual paper proposals should consist of an abstract (not exceeding 300 words) and a 1-2 page CV.
Panel proposals should consist of the name of the organizer, an overview of the panel (not exceeding 500 words), abstracts for each paper (not to exceed 300 words), and 1-2 page CVs for each presenter.
DEADLINE: 15. December 2019 (extended to 15. January 2020)
Proposals and inquiries should be sent to: ISCHMAINZ2020@gmail.com
Presenters whose abstracts are accepted for presentation are expected to become members of the ISCH. Further details can be found on the society’s website:http://www.culthist.net/membership/
Presenters are invited to consider submitting articles to the ISCH’s official peer-reviewed journal, Cultural History (published by Edinburgh University Press), and monographs to the book series it publishes with Routledge. Links to each respective publication opportunity follow: http://www.euppublishing.com/loi/cult and https://www.routledge.com/Studies-forthe-International-Society-for-Cultural-History/book-series/SISCH
Conference chair: Prof. Dr. Jörg Rogge (Mainz University)