CALL FOR PAPERS
CONFERENCE
PERFORMING BIOGRAPHIES: MEMORY AND THE ART OF INTERPRETATION
12-14 DECEMBER 2008
CRACOW, POLAND
ORGANISED BY:
Research Network 3 of the European Sociological Association Biographical Perspectives on European Societies
IN COOPERATION WITH:
Institute of Audiovisual Arts of the Jagiellonski
University Cracow and
Pauza Foundation for Promotion and Development of Contemporary Art
CONFERENCE THEME
This interdisciplinary Conference aims to explore and analyze systematically a wide range of biographical perspectives through story telling, performance and different kinds of visual art like film, video, photography, digital media etc. It is addressed to researchers who are willing to discuss and discover new fields and not take answers for granted. We hope it to be an open forum for discussion and networking in the context of each others company.
For further details about the conference see Conference Panels below and/or contact Thea Boldt, the Chair of the RN3 by the ESA: TheaBoldt@gmx. de
The Language of the Conference will be English. Please complete and return the registration form by the deadline of April 1st, 2008.
For all the details please find the registration form.
The discussions, workshops and performances within the realms of social science research will be accompanied by an exhibition of biographical performance and art organized by the Pauza Foundation. The participants in the conference are welcome to
take part in the exhibition. Please see www.pauza.pl or contact Karolina Harazim, the Chair of the Pauza Foundation for details: k.harazim@fundacjap auza.pl
THE CONFERENCE HAS 3 MAIN PANELS
PANEL 1: PERFORMING BIOGRAPHIES
The sessions and workshops of this panel will address the rise and implications of the idea of performance in social science and its applicability to the study of individual lives. The notion of performance is widening social science approaches to the study of individual life to include not only the traditional use of text from the transcribed oral account, but modes of expression and representation from the various arts (drama, music, dance, poetry, etc.) and visual technologies, including use of the web and multi-media. The aim of the panel is to show something of the range and scope of these approaches for an understanding of the individual as an acting, feeling and relational being.
Main themes: the nature of performance and performing biographies; artistic expression and everyday identities; performance as research; performing gender; the expression of individual biography in text, digital media, visual and sound.
Chair of the panel: Prof. Brian Roberts (University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, UK) broberts@glam. ac.uk
Sessions with papers:
1. Performing biographies through drama and poetry.
Chair: John Given (Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK)
2. Performing gender € ¦’¶ constructing biographies.
Chair: Prof. Bettina Dausien (University of Flensburg, Flensburg, Germany)
3. Performing biographies through music, art and dance.
Chair: Helen Gregory (University of Bath, Bath, UK)
Workshops:
1. Arts, Biography and Health.
Presenter: Prof. Norma Daykin (University of the West of England, Bristol, UK)
2. Performative Social Science.
Presenter: Dr. Kip Jones (Bournemouth University, Poole, Dorset, UK)
3. Digital Storytelling.
Presenters: Prof. Mike Wilson and Prof. Hamish Fyfe
(University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, UK)
PANEL 2: THE ART OF INTERPRETATION
The sessions and workshops of this panel will focus upon methodological issues, themes and perspectives. A key focus will be the creative process involved in conducting biographical research using a wide range of visual methods. It will also explore how we come to understand and interpret systematically the artistic and visual materials produced and performed in biographical frame.
Main Themes: using visual methodologies in biographical research; interpretation as art; visual hermeneutics; performance analysis; including analysis of film, video, photo, and digital storytelling into biographical studies.
Chair of the panel: Thea Boldt
(Georg-August- University, Goettingen, Germany) TheaBoldt@gmx. de
Sessions with papers:
1. Biography and visuals.
Chair: Dr. Maggie O€ ¦’²Neill (Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK)
and Prof. Robert Miller (Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK)
2. Understanding the visual language in biographical frame.
Chair: Prof. Alicja Helman (Institute of Audiovisual Arts, Jagiellonski University of Cracow, Poland)
3. Biography, video and multi media.
Chair: Prof. Eugeniusz Wilk and Dr. Andrzej Pitrus (Institute of Audiovisual Arts, Jagiellonski University of Cracow, Poland)
Workshops:
1. Interaction analysis. Workshop in video analysis.
Presenter: Prof. Wolfram Fischer (University of Kassel, Germany)
2. Pictured social spheres € ¦’¶ social spheres in pictures. Methodological approach to photo/picture analysis. Presenter: Dr. Roswitha Breckner (University of Vienna, Austria)
PANEL 3: MEMORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL MEMORIZING
The panel would be mainly devoted to the problem of individual memory and the process of memorizing in different social contexts.
The key point for discussion here is the dilemma between telling today and being in the past: how do people move between Past and Present; what is the process of selection from the Past; how could we stimulate the memorizing process (place memory, visual memory, collective story), images of collective memory in personal biographies. Another aspect to discuss here will be how changing social context (for example, in the situation of migration) can influence the process of memorizing and memory selection; what could be the interplay between public historical discourse and
individual memory. The most important point here is how to interpret such past-present interplay and use it to research firsthand data.
As memory is a communicative activity it is interesting to examine the mutual relation between collective and biographical memory as a framing process of biographical work on individual as well as collective identity formations.
Main themes: Memory and post-soviet biographies; body memory and Shoa; theory and
interpretation of social and cultural memory; collective biographical memory and identity. Chair of the panel: Prof. Victoria Semenova (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia) victoria-sem@ yandex.ru
Sessions with papers:
1. Post-Communist Biographical Space and Memory.
Chair: Prof. Victoria Semenova (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia) and Dr. Lyudmila Nurse (Hart Group, Aylesbury, UK)
2. Gender and the Holocaust: Body Memory.
Chair: Prof. Tamar Rapoport and Dr. Edna Lomsky-Feder (Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel)
3. Collective Biographical Memory and Identity Context. Chair: Dr. Kaja Kazmierska (University of Lodz, Poland)
4. Group biographies and individual memories: Correspondence, confirmation and/or
conflict in the production of family, and other group, biographies. Chair: Dr. Robin Humphrey (University of Newcastle, UK)
5. Dealing with Unpleasant Past: Taboos and Normalization. Chair: Prof. Tamar Rapoport and Dr. Edna Lomsky-Feder (Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel)
6. Visual images about the Past in Biographies. Chair: Prof. Elena Yarskaya-Smirnova and Prof. Pavel Romanov (Saratov State Technical University, Russia)
[sursa balkans]
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