The Limits of the Past: The Human Sciences and the Turn to Memory
An Interdisciplinary Graduate Colloquium
Vanderbilt University
19-20 April 2002
My first memory is of memory itself--and the fear of its loss, that
vast outer dark.
--A. Manette Ansay
Memory is never more chameleon than when it seems to stand still.
--Raphael Samuel
Since the cultural turn in the humanities and social sciences, the place of
memory in shaping cultural meaning and collective and individual action has
been a focus of scholars from a wide range of fields. For many reasons-the
end of the twentieth century and the millennium in western calendars; the
vast deployment of nationalist myths in ethnic confrontations over the last
two decades; the nostalgic trend in literature, cinema, and the media-the
uses of memory have also become an ever-present marker of our own modernity.
"The Limits of the Past" seeks to explore the borders of the turn to memory
to examine how memory liberates, constrains, or otherwise affects social and
political possibilities. The point of the conference is less to highlight
the dominance of memory in culture than to come to terms with implications
of the turn to memory for interpreting social practice.
The conference is an invitation to graduate students in the humanities and
social sciences to think through the nature of "memory work" in the
constitution of our understanding of the world. What limitations compromise
a memorial construction of the world? What are the implications of the turn
to memory for scholarly praxis and disciplinarity? How do the dynamics of
memory work vary within and among disciplines, their media and modes of
discourse? What are the issues with which the turn to memory cannot
necessarily engage? If memory is both a force for unity and collective
action and a force for divisiveness and manipulation, what bearing does it
have for the present? These are only some of the questions contributors
might address.
We invite papers from a wide range of disciplines, including (but not
limited to) anthropology, art history, history, literature, political
science, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. We also invite submissions
from all historical periods. While participants are encouraged to seek
funding from their own institutions, the conference organizers will award a
number of travel stipends. Please send 250-word abstracts and a brief vitae
by January 15 to the Conference Chairs:
Edward Harcourt and David Karr
Conference Co-Chairs
The Limits of the Past
VU Station B, Box 3473
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN 37235-3473
Or, email abstracts to david.karr@vanderbilt.edu and
edward.j.harcourt@vanderbilt.edu
Please see the conference website at
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/rpw_center/conference.htm for more information.
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