Update: deadline extended
----Please pass on to interested people - thank you! _______________________________________________________
Call For Papers
"National Trajectories: the nation and its histories"
National Trajectories is an interdisciplinary conference exploring the pasts and futures of the nation. It is about the possibilities and limitations of the nation as a frame for history; an exploration of the ideas, activism and identities contained by or exposed through the performance of nation.
In their germinal works on the nation and nationalism Ernest Renan, Eric Hobsbawm indicated that the history of the nation is one of fabrication and invented traditions. 'Getting its history wrong'‚ wrote Renan, 'is part of being a nation'. One of the key criticisms is that it assumes a choice between the invention and authenticity of tradition; it alludes to the possibility of historical objectivity. In more recent scholarship we have embraced notions of imagined communities and the national phantasm. These terms displace the instrumental connotations inherent in the notion of invention but nevertheless sustain the criticism of the nation as a frame for historical inquiry.
Some of the questions which may be explored are:
- How relevant are ideas of the nation for our understandings of identity, culture and politics? - Do we have to look beyond the nation or is it more interesting to find the histories and stories that have been enclosed/exposed within it? - Who are the custodians of the nation and its histories?
National Trajectories will be held on The University of Sydney main campus on Friday 10th November, 2000. Abstracts of not more than 150 words will be accepted (via email) until the 20th September.
Keynote: John Birmingham (author of 'Leviathan:the unauthorised biography of Sydney', 2000)
Contact details:
National Trajectories C/ Department of History The University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia
tel: 02 9351 2159 (Katy Nebhan) fax: 02 9351 3918 (as above)
=============================================== From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List CFP@english.upenn.edu Full Information at http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/ or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu ===============================================
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