We are seeking papers for a proposed panel for the 2009 AAA conference in Philadelphia, PA. The papers should focus on memory as social practice and the multiple ways in which memory is conjured, embodied, strategized, used as a response to existing social conditions, and performed as a political act. For a complete description of the panel abstrast please contact us.

Some of the questions the panel organizers seek to explore include:
• How do social agents come together to produce memory? What practices do they employ?
• How are memories conveyed to publics or particular audiences? That is, what acts of representation do, or must, occur for particular forms of memory to achieve dominance, and how do these particular forms ‘earn’ the imprint of the historical as against other non-dominant or ‘folk’ forms?
• Historical representation is a political act; how is memory authorized, and by whom? What are the ways by which and conditions under which authorized forms of memory are inscribed? What work is done to sustain authorized forms of memory? What are the prominent narratives of memory and how are they embodied? What/who are forgotten and elided in memory work and memories?
• What are the ways in which public memories are used as a political strategy or as an attempt to rework cultural and symbolic repertoires to achieve specified, intentional ends?