[H-verkko] CFP: Transfers and demarcations, GRACEH 2011

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Transfers and demarcations, GRACEH 2011

Call for Papers (GRACEH 2011): Transfers and demarcations

5th Annual Graduate Conference in European History, Florence, April
28—30, 2011. Organized by the European University Institute (EUI),
Florence

in cooperation with the Central European University (CEU), Budapest
and the University of Vienna (Universität Wien,
Historisch-kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät)

The increasing attention to transfer studies as an alternative
historiographical approach reflects one of the most fundamental
recent changes in the discipline: the shift of attention from
structures to processes. Transfer studies investigate societies and
cultures from the perspective of dynamics, flows and movement,
focusing on phenomena ranging from travels and migration to a large
variety of transferred material and symbolic goods, including
literature and art, technology and skills, ideas and concepts. Seen
from this angle, interaction and circulation across ethnographic and
linguistic, cultural and social as well as state and civilization
borders become a precondition for historical processes – and
historical development itself. The 5th Graduate Conference in
European History will be dedicated to this approach, particularly in
view of a decisive element in all transfer processes: the moment of
demarcation.

A primary interest is how we can methodologically and empirically
benefit from the attention to disintegration, alienation and
disentanglement during or after transfer processes. Is the transfer
approach with its tendency to stress commonalities and shared
features incompatible with an increased sensitivity to what marks
unsuccessful, rejected or sabotaged transfers? Does the
methodological framework on which the approach is built lead to an
idea of history as predominantly a sequence of flows and movements or
does it equally help to discover ruptures and boundaries? Should the
definition of transfer be widened to a definition that stresses
transfers as open processes without presupposing successful
adaptation and transformation?

Therefore, we welcome papers that direct attention towards boundaries
and obstacles, to demarcations as reactions to the transfer process
itself, and hope to encourage contributions from a wide variety of
disciplines and topics by deliberately defining demarcation broadly:

Demarcations as reactions to transfer processes can range from
unconscious, sceptical or conservative dismissals of the unfamiliar
to offensive, conscious and even aggressive assertions of the
differences between the “own” and the “foreign”.  Thus, transfers
fail due to the emphasis on and even construction of borders and
barriers in reaction to encounters and interaction during the
transfer processes. Examples of this can be cases of failed
integration among minorities or migrants legitimized by references to
values and traditions, transfers that were halted by what was
perceived of as insurmountable differences in political or religious
ideologies, or direct confrontations in border regions resulting in
processes of demarcation. On the other hand, transfers can also turn
out surprisingly successful in spite of clear demarcations, which
tells a lot about the permeability of allegedly rigid borders.
Examples can touch upon the surprising transcendence of social
borders in traditional class societies, of physical borders such as
wartime frontlines or the Iron Curtain or of racial boundaries in
colonial societies. Eventually successful transfers can motivate
further demarcation processes, as the spread of nationalism and
national thinking throughout the world or the similar but competing
versions of modernity in East and West during the conflict of systems
have illustrated.

You are cordially invited to the 5th Annual Graduate Conference in
European History, which will be held at the European University
Institute, Florence, Italy, from 28 to 30 April 2011. For
participation, please, send the title and a 300-word abstract of your
paper along with your contact details to GRACEH2011 at gmail.com by
February 1st. The conference has no registration fee and lunches will
be provided for the participants. Accommodation will be covered by the
organizer, and part of the travel costs can be reimbursed on the basis
of individual request. More information regarding travel and
accommodation will be sent along with notification of acceptance.

The GRACEH 2011 Organizing Committee: Prof. Antonella Romano, Joonas
Korhonen, Hanne Østhus, Volker Prott, Magnus Qvistgaard, Lars Fredrik
Stöcker, Daria Bocharnikova.

For further questions, please contact the organizers by e-mail
GRACEH2011 at gmail.com or see http://graceh2011.wordpress.com/



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Ilmoituksen lähetti: Joonas Korhonen <joonas.korhonen at eui.eu>
Ilmoitus vanhentuu: 02.02.2011
Lisätietoja WWW-osoitteesta: http://graceh2011.wordpress.com/