Commemoration, Monuments and Public Memory

Dates: 2-4 August 2005

Venue : Humanities Research Centre, The Australian National University, Canberra

This inter-disciplinary conference will bring together scholars in the burgeoning field of memory studies to explore the impact of commemorations and monuments on the cultural, political and social landscape.

Papers are invited from social historians, political scientists, cultural theorists, art historians, sociologists and psychologists. The conference organisers seek contributions relating to a wide range of periods and places, and it is hoped that there will also be papers concerned with innovative methodological approaches. Proposals for papers from postgraduate students will be welcomed.

Themes include (but are not limited to):

• Monuments and Commemoration as sites of political contest
• Commemoration, Monuments and trauma
• Art and Commemoration
• Portraiture, biography and public memory
• Monuments as sacred sites
• Monuments, public memory and national identity
• Re-enactment and commemoration

Proposals must include name/s, affiliations, and an abstract (up to 300 words). Proposals from graduate students are welcome.

Abstracts of Proposal for panels or individual papers should be submitted to Paul Pickering (paul.pickering@anu.edu.au) by 31 October 2004.