History, Memory, and Social Movements
The Institute for Social Movements (ISB) of the Ruhr University Bochum, chaired by Prof. Dr. Stefan Berger, invites interested scholars and advanced students to the conference “History, Memory, and Social Movements”, which will take place at the ISB on July 19-20, 2017.
The conference is part of a collaborative postgraduate project between the ISB and the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne (Australia) under the auspices of Prof. Dr. Sean Scalmer.
Memory studies have become a field of growing interest in the humanities. While scholars of different disciplines focus mainly on the theoretical and methodological groundwork of “memory”, historical researchers frequently analyse “memory” in connection with nationalism studies and/or the creation of cultural identity within a state. However, research on social movements is comparatively rare in this field. The conference “History, Memory, and Social Movements” addresses this shortcoming and examines the role of “memory” in several social movements.
In doing so, it investigates the manifold ways in which memory cultures, memory politics, history politics and activism played a role in social movements.
How do social movements act as repositories of (counter-) memory? In which way have they built “memory” themselves? How far have they mediated their kind of “memory” to the broad public? Which former stakeholders and campaigns were important for several social movements? Why did the remembrance of their protagonists only play a marginal role in historiography, commemorative culture and public reception? All these questions will be discussed by established scholars and experts on memory and on social movement studies as well as by junior researchers from different disciplines.
For further information or registration, please contact the organisers Alrun Berger, Jule Ehms and Sarah Langwald via histmem@rub.de.
The participation is free of charge, travel and accommodation costs are not covered.
Funded by the Ruhr University Research School PLUS.
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