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CALL FOR PAPERS
Cardiff School of European Studies is organising a conference on
Cultural Memory of German Left-Wing Terrorism
Conference Organiser: Gerrit-Jan Berendse
Cardiff University, 16-17 September 2005
The focus of the conference is a critical investigation of a web of culturally remembering the terrorist period in Germany (1968-98) by artists and scholars alike. A major impulse for this new interest in the past and the display of various public memory contests during the post-unification period in Europe seems to be the need for redefining German identity. One of the targets of the explosion of memory in post-unified Germany was the revision of the narratives which dominate the history of the 1968 generation and the RAF generation. The search for new narratives means scrutinizing the places in which memories are both stored and communicated. In recent publications, topics related to politically motivated violence surfaced that need to be critically examined. These are:
- artistic representations of terrorism and their (in-)ability to deal with traumatic events
- the RAF and its tense relationship with the protest movement of the late-1960s
- the links between left-wing terrorism and the ‘benchmark’ of politically motivated violence in Germany, Nazi terror and the Holocaust
These three major topics will constitute the tenor of the conference.
The conference welcomes papers that investigate these issues, and encourages interdisciplinary and comparative scholarship that places German, Germanic and European Studies in a larger context. Theoretical papers on cultural memory are very much appreciated.
Confirmed Speakers include:
- Gerd Koenen (Frankfort/Main)
- Andres Veiel (Munich)
- Sabine von Dirke (Pittsburgh)
- Moray McGowan (Dublin)
- Julian Preece (Kent)
- Ingo Cornils (Leeds)
- Ewout van der Knaap (Utrecht)
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