Conferences - Images of Power / Representation of the Past; Public Sphere, Ideology, Transformation of Power, University of Vienna, November 2011‏

Conferences - Images of Power / Representation of the Past; Public Sphere, Ideology, Transformation of Power, University of Vienna, November 2011‏

The Doctoral College (DC) European Historical Dictatorship and Transformation
Research is a common project of the Departments of Contemporary History,
Political Science, East European History, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies of
the University of Vienna. Twelve doctoral fellows from various disciplines do
research on the 20th century authoritarian regimes of Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey,
Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, Poland and others.

The Doctoral College is organising for November 2011 two
conferences:

Conference: "Images of Power / Representation of the Past"
Date: 7.-8. November 2011
Contact: Ms. Nathalie Soursos (nathalie.patricia.soursos@univie.ac.at)

Conference: "Public Sphere, Ideology, Transformation of Power"
Date: 24.-25.11.2011
Contact: Mr. Florian Kuehrer (florian.kuehrer@univie.ac.at)

You can also find more information about the College on our website:
http://diktaturforschung.univie.ac.at/en/home/

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Call for Papers
Conference “Images of Power / Representations of the Past”
The Doctoral College European Historical Dictatorship and Transformation
Research

University of Vienna, Department of Contemporary History
The conference will take place on November 7th-8th 2011 at the University of
Vienna.
Deadline for CfP: April 30th 2011

The conference Images of Power / Representations of the Past is organized by the
Doctoral College European Historical Dictatorship and Transformation Research at
the University of Vienna as the first part of a bigger conference (the second
part, with the title Public sphere, ideology, transformation of power, will be
organized by the Doctoral College as well and will take place two weeks later).
It aims to explore different aspects and correlations between images and
political power. The focus of the conference lies on the social, political and
ideological utilization and function of images in dictatorial regimes and
societies in transformation.

The goal is to identify diverse ways of how visual art and various types of
images were used as a political instrument in the European dictatorships of the
twentieth century to promote the representation of political power, leaders and
heroes, as well as the construction of national identity, historical narratives
and national myths. Different forms of political iconography should be
particularly examined and analysed with emphasis on concept of nation, state and
power, visual representation of political parties and elite. The materials that
could be explored are e.g. posters, photography, film, promotion material for
election campaigns and others.
Questions that could be raised, especially on case studies examples, might
include, but are not limited to:
· How does visual art contribute to the construction of political, social and
historical myths, legends
and memories?
· How and why do images and power interfere and interact?
· How different representations of the past influenced politics in European
countries during the 20th
century?
· What was/is the role of visual and mental images for the construction of
identity in European
dictatorships as well as in post-dictatorial societies?
· How do official culture, art and cultural events in a dictatorship reflect,
spread and help to assert its ideological ideas, political thinking and
strategical aims?

The theme of the conference is broadly conceived and we are keen to encourage
papers from a variety of critical perspectives from graduate students of all
disciplines from universities abroad, as well as from Austrian universities.

Working language of the conference: English
Please send your 300 words proposal, together with your short CV and current
email address, to Ms. Nathalie Soursos nathalie.patricia.soursos@univie.ac.at by
April 30th 2011.

Successful candidates will be informed per email by May 31st 2011.
Travel and accommodation expenses for accepted presentations up to a limited
amount will be covered by the organizers of the conference

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Call for Papers

Conference "Public Sphere, Ideology, Transformation of Power"
Doctoral College European Historical Dictatorship and Transformation Research

University of Vienna, Department of Contemporary History
The conference will take place on November 24-25, 2011 at the University of
Vienna
Deadline for Proposals: April 30, 2011

The conference Public Sphere, Ideology, Transformation of Power represents the
second part of the conference organized by the Doctoral College European
Historical Dictatorship and Transformation Research located at the Department of
Contemporary History, University of Vienna
The key words of the conference title correspond to crucial aspects for the
formation, functioning, and fighting for political hegemony of authoritarian
regimes while being under pressure of adjusting to constantly changing external
and internal factors in a fast-paced 20th century Europe.

The conference aims to address the field of ‘public sphere’, the category
‘ideology’ and the process ‘transformation of power’ in a twofold approach:
On the one hand, strategies of the regime’s representatives to maintain their
once gained power will be illuminated as state-driven approaches of shaping
public opinion in order to achieve the regime’s goals. Top-down perspectives
should broaden our understanding of structural mechanisms and the functions
attributed to (non-)formal
means of communicating within these political frameworks.
Complementary, bottom-up initiatives introduced by social groups as a response
to authoritarian state rule will be examined. Investigating mobilisation
processes within different social settings a society helps identifying key
opinion leaders and recognizing social needs the regime itself is not able to
fulfill ‘from above’. Moreover, by analyzing factors of social coherence of
people under authoritarian regimes processes of individual and collective
identity are to be explored.
Therefore, we are interested in papers that might include, but are not limited
to, the following questions in light
of European pre and post war authoritarian regimes in the 20th century:

· Cluster A - Public sphere:
Which formal mechanisms were available to regimes in order to restore order?
Which functions had an informal participating public sphere according to elite
groups and regime?
Which spheres were occupied by resistance or resistant behaviour? Where can
borders be delineated
between public and privacy?

· Cluster B - Ideology:
Which social/ elite groups are recognized as bearer of ideology? Do they
represent a support for the regime
or are they seen as antagonising factor?
In which sphere is hegemony of interpretation being negotiated? Public vs.
private? To what extent does
transnational influence play a decisive role?
Which values are attributed to national ideology? Questioning of the past or
justification of the present as
motivational theme in ideology?

· Cluster C - Transformation of Power:
Which social groups are identified in the processes of transformation of power?
In which spheres does political power undergo transformation?
Which extrinsic/ intrinsic factors can be detected as trigger of change?

Working language of the conference: English

The conference is intended for young faculty, doctoral students and senior post
graduate students in political science, sociology, history and other related
disciplines from Austrian and international universities.

We invite both contributions discussing methodological approaches and case
studies. We encourage comparative/ transfer analytical and interdisciplinary
approaches; priority will be put on papers that include more than one of the
mentioned key aspects and highlight the interdependence of these questions.

Please send your 300 words proposal, together with your contact details and a
short CV, to florian.kuehrer@univie.ac.at by April 30, 2011.

Successful candidates will be informed per e-mail by May 31, 2011.
Travel and accommodation expenses for candidates with accepted presentations up
to a limited amount will be covered
by the organizers of the conference.
 

Student Conference: Reckoning with the Recent Past in Post-Dictatorial Societies May 13-14, 2011

 Student Conference: Reckoning with the Recent Past in Post-Dictatorial Societies May 13-14, 2011

 The challenges of reckoning with the recent past differ from one post-dictatorial society to another, shaping new values, principles, or juridical norms on which democracy is to be built. As Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan underline in their study, the implications of transitions and of democratic consolidations are more complex than the simple movement from a nondemocratic to a democratic regime. Such periods are defined by analytic efforts of understanding the former regime, both with regard to the mechanisms of repression that allowed for its perpetuation, and to the manner in which citizens built mechanisms of accommodation to it. Furthermore, periods of transition entail also pragmatic, institutional, choices for drawing a line between the past and the present, so as the new political and social order becomes credible (Claus Offe).

In a broad sense, transitional justice envisions a multitude of practices and methods of dealing with, investigating, re-evaluating, or correcting the errors of the former regime (Lavinia Stan). Considering this, the juridical and political responses are linked to a specific understanding of justice in transition, including, non-exhaustively, measures of access to archives, establishment of historical commissions for the study of the past, criminal investigation of former perpetrators, temporary exclusion from public offices of the former political elite or of former collaborators of the secret police, or the restitution of the property seized by the former regime. Critical inquiries, the re-evaluation and confrontation of the past contribute to imagining the political and juridical instruments that allow democracy to find ways of expression. Moreover, the problematic of memory becomes one of significant relevance in building a democratic community, as no viable democracy can be born out of negation, amnesia, or forgetfulness of past crimes, abuses, and errors (Vladimir Tismaneanu).

The student conference organized by the Department of Political Science, University of Bucharest, in collaboration with the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (Bucharest) and Università di Bologna - Forlì (the European project Me 2 EU : From Memory to Europe), is an invitation to reflect upon the different choices and methods of reckoning with the past in post-dictatorial societies.

We welcome original theoretical and empirical studies, individually or collectively conducted, which are able to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue on the following (but not restricted to) themes:
- Memory and democracy: Dealing with the recent past in post-communist European societies;
- Transitional justice mechanisms and practices;
- The role of different socio-political actors in the enactment and enforcement of transitional justice mechanisms and practices (political parties, civil society, historical commissions, etc.);
- Policies, practices, instruments, and institutions administering the relation with the recent past;
- Policies and politics of memory. The political stake in administering the recent past;
- Historical narratives about the recent past (in the public discourse, history handbooks, programs of political parties, jurisprudence, etc.)
- Memorials and lieux de mémoire;
- The nostalgia of the former regime. Explanations and interpretations;
- The status of minorities in post-dictatorial societies
- The relation between the legal systems of the former and current regimes:
- The problematic of the victim in transitional justice.

We particularly welcome the contributions of students enrolled in the final years of BA and MA studies in social sciences: political science, anthropology, sociology, and law.

The conference will take place at the Political Science Department, University of Bucharest: 8, Spiru Haret Street, 010175, Bucharest (District 1), Romania.

For participation, please submit an abstract (in English or French) of no more than 300 words, and a brief CV to fspubconference@gmail.com, by March 30. Mention if partial funding for travel and accommodation costs is needed (currently available funding is very limited).

The selected papers (cca. 20, 000 - 25, 000 characters) should be submitted by May 7th. The languages of the conference will be English and French. However, the final paper can be written in Romanian, English, or French.

The conference is organized in partnership with Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie; The Policy Center for Roma and Minorities, Bucharest; Europe Direct CENTRAS, Bucharest.


Department of Political Science, University of Bucharest
Deadline for submitting the abstract: March 30, 2011

http://fspubconference2011.wordpress.com/