[MGSA-L] Conference (CfP), Nation States between memories of World War II and contemporary European politics

[June Samaras]

From: Vassilis Ritzaleos <ritzaleo at hol.gr>
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2011 14:46:25 +0300
Subject: Conference (CfP), Nation States between memories of World War
II and contemporary
Nation States between memories of World War II and contemporary
European politics

University of Nottingham
Datum, Ort: 27.06.2012-29.06.2012, Nottingham
Deadline: 01.08.2011

Papers are invited for an international and interdisciplinary
symposium entitled  Nation States between memories of World War II and
contemporary European politics , to be held in June 2012 in
Nottingham. The organisers welcome proposals on any European country,
but are particularly keen to receive proposals on France, the
Netherlands, Russia and Scandinavia.

At the most recent European elections the UK Independence Party s
campaign centered on the iconic image of Winston Churchill, through
whom UKIP   which eventually emerged as the second strongest British
party contesting these elections   sought to articulate its staunch
anti-EU politics. Not surprisingly, such discursive/ visual strategies
were criticized   by, for example, a Conservative Party politician on
the BBC s Question Time (21 May 2009)   for being inaccurate,
thoroughly de-contextualized and historically distorting. In Georgia
meanwhile, near what some consider the European continent s most
easterly boundaries, a popular musician and leading figure in the
opposition movement has drawn deeply disconcerting comparisons between
his country s World War II history and its present state (Deutsche
Welle TV, 4 June 2009). And in Belgium, at the heart of Europe, the
chairman of the FDF, Olivier Maingain, compared the policies of the
Flemish regional government to  practices worthy of the German
occupation  (La Libre Belgique, 31 March 2010), whereas Filip Dewinter
of Vlaams Belang accused the francophone parties of seeking Lebensraum
in Flanders (VRT TV, 3 June 2010).

These are but three of innumerable instances   some of them highly
controversial and much-discussed, others part of mundane everyday
discourse   of the past being invoked to make sense of current
contexts and, crucially, to articulate a political position. More
narrowly, it is particularly the history of World War II, and within
it memories of invasion, occupation, oppression and genocide, that are
commonly used   or misused   as points of alleged comparison with or
analogy for present circumstances. Amongst the latter, questions of EU
politics and European integration, the  fate  of nation states in
times of economic globalization and the current financial crises, the
much-debated European constitution and, more recently, the Lisbon
reform treaty are objects of particularly widespread concern and
debate across Europe.

We now invite abstracts for papers examining these issues in any
European context, both within and beyond the EU s current borders.
More precisely, we invite contributions that examine the contemporary
instrumentalization of memories of World War II for rhetorical
purposes of comparison in the context of national or transnational
power struggles. Each paper is thus expected to contain three key
components:

1. an empirical focus on a particular European context;
2. an analysis of publicly circulating and/ or contested
interpretations of World War II history;
3. an examination of how such historical narratives are articulated
and mobilized for particular ideological purposes in the context of
contemporary national/ European politics.

We intend to build on Lebow et al. s The Politics of Memory in Postwar
Europe (2006, Duke University Press), Heer et al. s The Discursive
Construction of History (2008, Palgrave Macmillan), Jan-Werner
Mόller s seminal edited collection on Memory & Power in Post-War
Europe (2002, Cambridge University Press), and on Pakier and Strεth s
recent collection A European Memory? (2010, Berghahn): firstly, by
extending the geographical reach of our analyses through a wider range
of empirical case studies; and, secondly, through an analytical focus
on the current salience of historical narratives commonly used to
interpret, predict and respond to some of the social, political and
economic challenges widely perceived to define the here and now.

We anticipate that contributions will examine such contemporary
 politics of memory  across a wide range of potentially relevant data:
from political controversies to everyday language; from relevant media
discourse to representations of World War II in art, film, novels,
biographies etc; from school textbooks to readers  letters to
newspaper editors; from party political manifestos to public rituals
of commemoration; from life histories to current debates about the
relative absence of   and need for   a pan-European public sphere.

Moreover, there is a host of potentially relevant conceptual issues
and theoretical questions we invite contributors to relate their
analyses to, including any of the following: How are memories of the
Holocaust invoked in contemporary discussions surrounding European
integration? More broadly, how, where, by whom and for what purposes
are memories and narratives of World War II selected and articulated
today? How and where are such narratives of the past contested? What
is the relative relevance of national and European politics, of
globalization and the current economic crisis to any such invocations
of   and interpretative struggles over   the past? Can competing
historical narratives be meaningfully described   in Gramscian
terminology   as  hegemonic  and  counter-hegemonic  respectively,
and, if so, in relation to which  scale  of contemporary politics
(i.e. local, regional, national, European, global)? Which wider
theoretical debates (e.g. regarding  social memory ; theories of
nationalism; discourse analytical approaches to studying language in
social context; conceptualizations of civil society etc.) advance our
understanding of such contemporary interpretative contests over World
War II history? How do such ideological struggles over memory connect
with contemporary debates about migration, multiculturalism,
integration and identity politics? As academics, what are our
intellectual and ethical responsibilities in responding to historical
inaccuracies, distortions, omissions or mis-uses?

The conference will take place at the University of Nottingham from
27-29 June 2012. A key note address will be given by Dr Henning
Grunwald (Vanderbilt University).

The deadline for abstracts of original, previously unpublished work to
be sent to Bram.Mertens at nottingham.ac.uk and
Christian.Karner at nottingham.ac.uk is 1 August 2011. Abstracts should
be between 500 and 600 words in length and provide an outline of the
context the discussion will examine, of the kinds of materials the
paper sets out to analyze, and of the conceptual questions to be
addressed. We hope to publish an edited collection of select
conference contributions with Transaction Publishers. The time frame
for this edited collection will be extremely tight, so potential
contributors will need near-finished papers by the time of the
conference and will have to submit final drafts for consideration by
the editors within two weeks of the conference. Submissions will also
need to be formatted fully in line with Transaction guidelines, which
will be circulated after the deadline for abstracts.

Kontakt: Bram Mertens

University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD

bram.mertens at nottingham.ac.uk