CfP: Interdisciplinary Workshop: ‘Memory in the Russian and East European Context: Space, Text and Speech’

Date: 22nd April 2020

Location: University College Oxford.

Existing at the intersection of culture, history and politics, memory studies is inherently interdisciplinary. The variety of available methodologies presents exciting opportunities for scholars. However, it also renders the field somewhat disparate, especially for early career researchers who may feel uncomfortable adopting approaches outside of their own disciplinary training. What are the challenges of interdisciplinary work? How can we develop a more cohesive understanding of the available methods while acknowledging that certain approaches will prove most effective when answering particular questions? This one-day workshop aims to answer such queries by bringing together graduate and early career researchers of memory in the Russian and East European context from a range of disciplines to share their work and to discover new ways of examining the field.

The workshop combines introductory, expert-led training sessions with panel presentations and student discussions. We will focus on methodologies such as media, discourse and narrative analysis, oral history, material culture, and museum studies. Our keynote speaker is Dr Juliane Fürst, who is co-head of the ‘Communism & Society’ Department at the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam and who recently staged an exhibition on Soviet hippy culture in collaboration with the Wende Museum in Los Angeles. The full programme can be found on the event’s website:

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

Existing at the intersection of culture, history and politics, memory studies is inherently interdisciplinary. The variety of available methodologies presents exciting opportunities for scholars. However, it also renders the field somewhat disparate, especially for early career researchers who may feel uncomfortable adopting approaches outside of their own disciplinary training. What are the challenges of interdisciplinary work? How can we develop a more cohesive understanding of the available methods while acknowledging that certain approaches will prove most effective when answering particular questions? This one-day workshop aims to address such queries by bringing together researchers of memory in the Russian and Eastern European context from a range of disciplines to share their work and to discover new ways of examining the field.

The workshop combines introductory, expert-led training sessions with student discussions and panel presentations. We will focus on methodologies such as oral history, material culture, discourse analysis, and museum studies. As such, the workshop will be of direct relevance to students working across a number of disciplines in both the Humanities and Social Sciences, including but not to limited to History, Medieval and Modern Languages, Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, and Global and Area Studies. A number of our speakers are undertaking research across different – and disparate – cultures and the day’s discussions will also interrogate the opportunities and challenges of comparative, as well as interdisciplinary, work.

The workshop is generously supported by the CEELBAS Centre for Doctoral Training, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and University College Oxford.

PROGRAMME

9:00-9:30. Registration

9:30-10:00. Opening remarks Dr Polly Jones (Oxford)

10:00-11:15. Training Workshop on Memory and Heritage Studies (title TBC) Dr Margaret Comer (Cambridge)

11:15-11:45. Coffee Break

Author: Aisseco

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