Third Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference at the University of Washington, Seattle: April 5-6, 2019

Vanessa Hester Announcement
Location
Washington, United States
Subject Fields
Graduate Studies, Intellectual History, Political History / Studies, German History / Studies, Humanities

Residue and Remnants: (re-)Presenting Cultural Memory, Contamination, and Destruction

 

“Without remembrance and without the reification which remembrance needs for its own fulfillment and which makes it, indeed, as the Greeks held, the mother of all arts, the living activities of action, speech, and thought would lose their reality at the end of each process and disappear as though they never had been.”

                                                                                    – Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

 

As Hannah Arendt intimates, all action, speech, and thought are dependent upon the act of remembering. Indeed, without the remembrance of things past, the present becomes a time and space filled with anxiety, all the more so when the problems surrounding how and what to remember are considered at the level of culture. The interdisciplinary graduate student conference entitled “Residue and Remnants: (re-)Presenting Cultural Memory, Contamination, and Destruction” will investigate the complexities surrounding cultural residues pertaining to the reproduction and erasure of traditions, artistic practices, and mythologies, thus posing questions about what remains and how it has arrived. Answers to these questions have been offered from a multitude of disciplines including, but not limited to: sociology, philosophy, anthropology, political science, drama, history, psychology, comparative literature, philology, and media studies. What narratives and histories dominate the popular imaginary? How have they come to us? How have these legacies been written/performed/expressed? What are the influences that have shaped the stories we tell? What can we learn from that which has survived and where is the place for that which has been erased?

 

Some possible questions could include:

 

  • How have legacies of the invisible permeated the present?
  • How are these legacies revealed through performance?
  • In what ways has censorship sustained fascination in the forbidden?
  • How have various media influenced or contributed to the narratives of our time?
  • To what ends have mythologies been recycled in contemporary culture?
  • What constitutes our understanding of originality and the ownership thereof?
  • In what ways do power relations mandate or disrupt the continuation of cultural    practices?
  • How could the meanings of artistic and cultural practices change according to new adaptations in media?
  • How are cultural anxieties represented aesthetically in environmental landscapes?
  • How does toxic fallout from human activity change the cultural as well physical landscape of a place?
  • How does intertextuality function as a means to pay homage to and/or disrupt the past?

 

 

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

 

  • Cultural Performance and Practice
  • Mythology and Myth-Making
  • Historiography
  • Environmental and Cultural Toxicity
  • Originality, Imitation, and Emulation
  • Recycling and Recovery
  • Arts and Media in the Information Age/Age of the Internet
  • Orality and Textuality
  • Intertextuality and Intertemporality

 

We would like to thank the Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema, and Media Studies, Department of Germanics, Department of Scandinavian Studies, and the School of Drama for their generous support in making this conference possible. 

 

We encourage proposals submitted by graduate students from all disciplines, as well as dance, theatrical, literary, and cinematic contributions. Please submit a mini bio (no longer than 50 words) and an abstract (no longer than 300 words) for a 15-20 minute presentation to uwigsc19@gmail.com no later than January 5th, 2019.

Residue and Remnants: (re-)Presenting Cultural Memory, Contamination, and Destruction

 

“Without remembrance and without the reification which remembrance needs for its own fulfillment and which makes it, indeed, as the Greeks held, the mother of all arts, the living activities of action, speech, and thought would lose their reality at the end of each process and disappear as though they never had been.”

                                                                                    – Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

 

As Hannah Arendt intimates, all action, speech, and thought are dependent upon the act of remembering. Indeed, without the remembrance of things past, the present becomes a time and space filled with anxiety, all the more so when the problems surrounding how and what to remember are considered at the level of culture. The interdisciplinary graduate student conference entitled “Residue and Remnants: (re-)Presenting Cultural Memory, Contamination, and Destruction” will investigate the complexities surrounding cultural residues pertaining to the reproduction and erasure of traditions, artistic practices, and mythologies, thus posing questions about what remains and how it has arrived. Answers to these questions have been offered from a multitude of disciplines including, but not limited to: sociology, philosophy, anthropology, political science, drama, history, psychology, comparative literature, philology, and media studies. What narratives and histories dominate the popular imaginary? How have they come to us? How have these legacies been written/performed/expressed? What are the influences that have shaped the stories we tell? What can we learn from that which has survived and where is the place for that which has been erased?

 

Some possible questions could include:

 

  • How have legacies of the invisible permeated the present?
  • How are these legacies revealed through performance?
  • In what ways has censorship sustained fascination in the forbidden?
  • How have various media influenced or contributed to the narratives of our time?
  • To what ends have mythologies been recycled in contemporary culture?
  • What constitutes our understanding of originality and the ownership thereof?
  • In what ways do power relations mandate or disrupt the continuation of cultural    practices?
  • How could the meanings of artistic and cultural practices change according to new adaptations in media?
  • How are cultural anxieties represented aesthetically in environmental landscapes?
  • How does toxic fallout from human activity change the cultural as well physical landscape of a place?
  • How does intertextuality function as a means to pay homage to and/or disrupt the past?

 

 

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

 

  • Cultural Performance and Practice
  • Mythology and Myth-Making
  • Historiography
  • Environmental and Cultural Toxicity
  • Originality, Imitation, and Emulation
  • Recycling and Recovery
  • Arts and Media in the Information Age/Age of the Internet
  • Orality and Textuality
  • Intertextuality and Intertemporality

 

We would like to thank the Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema, and Media Studies, Department of Germanics, Department of Scandinavian Studies, and the School of Drama for their generous support in making this conference possible. 

 

We encourage proposals submitted by graduate students from all disciplines, as well as dance, theatrical, literary, and cinematic contributions. Please submit a mini bio (no longer than 50 words) and an abstract (no longer than 300 words) for a 15-20 minute presentation to uwigsc19@gmail.com no later than January 5th, 2019.

Contact Email
uwigsc19@gmail.com