Call for Papers:
Narrating Memory

The European Social Science History Conference has been held biannually since 1996. The Oral History and Life Stories network has met at each conference since 1998, and interest in it has been steadily rising. In 2004, some seventy participants gathered at the network sessions. With the International Oral History Association conference now meeting every other time outside Europe (Rio in 1998, Turkey in 2000, South Africa in 2002, Rome in 2004, Australia in 2006), the Network has become the major regular international forum for European oral history and life story researchers.

We invite proposals for the Amsterdam conference on 22-25 March 2006 both for individual papers and for entire sessions. Sessions can have various formats: panels, round table discussions, presentations in other media followed by discussion.

We wish to encourage reflection and discussions on the ways memory works and the ways it is used; on how we communicate, listen to and interpret narrated memories; on the interplay of public narratives and private narrations, official and oppositional memories. We invite contributions discussing conceptual and methodological issues related to memory, employing different concepts of memory based on oral sources and/or personal accounts.

We would welcome proposals addressing the following issues:

• Repressed memory and memory of repression: official, public, and private narratives;
• Memory and testimony: claiming the right to memory;
• Communicating memories: how group memories structure personal accounts;
• Constructing the body: public image versus private memory;
• Constructing the self: memory, subjectivity, identity.

Please send your proposals to both Nanci Adler (N.Adler@niod.nl) and Daniela Koleva (daniela@sclg.uni-sofia.bg). Upon submission, you also have to pre-register on the conference website http://www.iisg.nl/esshc where more general conference information is available.
The deadline for sending your abstract is 30 April 2005.

The Network Committee advising on the 2006 ESSHC includes:
Nanci Adler N.Adler@niod.nl Network Co-Chair
Timothy Ashplant T.G.Ashplant@livjm.ac.uk
Joanna Bornat j.bornat@open.ac.uk
Gerhard Botz gerhard.botz@univie.ac.at
Ela Hornung michaela.hornung@univie.ac.at,
Daniela Koleva daniela@sclg.uni-sofia.bg Network Co-Chair
Selma Leydesdorff leydesdorff@pscw.uva.nl
Hugo Manson h.manson@abdn.ac.uk,
Graham Smith Graham.Smith@sheffield.ac.uk
Penny Summerfield penny.summerfield@man.ac.uk