INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE
History and
Historiography in the 20th century
Athens, 18-20
June 2015
CALL FOR
PAPERS
Although the character of nineteenth-century historiography was more or
less defined along the lines of historicism, positivism and the rise of
national histories, this was not the case in the twentieth century. In the
first part of the century, historians (with a few distinct exceptions) followed
the nineteenth-century paradigms. Yet, in the second half of the century, the
disciplinary gates opened, boundaries and borders were reconsidered and certainties
questioned. A flow of successive trends and turns in methods, theories and ways
of approaching, researching, practicing, narrating, writing but also filming,
staging and performing history emerged. A new landscape was formed. Ever since,
we have changed, or at least we have reconsidered, our terminologies, concepts
and perspectives. We have discussed memory, public history, history wars,
historical cultures, and the traumas of the past. We have been exploring
disciplinary transformations and changing questions and themes. The past seems
to have escaped from the mausoleum where nineteenth-century historiography had
mummified it, to acquire a new life, to become a ghost that disturbed, annoyed,
troubled but also amused and entertained contemporary societies.
In this context, it is difficult to conceptualize twentieth-century
historiography as a coherent subject of study. Even more so, if we take into
account the spread of historiography, history and memory wars around the globe.
Historiography has been transplanted everywhere through colonialism and/or
anti-colonialism. There is an abundant literature on the various historical
trends, on the passages of one turn to the next, on history wars, on memory and
public history, on the forms that historical experience and historical
consciousness have acquired in the course of the twentieth century. Historical
theory has developed into a burgeoning field in recent decades. But little
attempt has been made to produce a comprehensive study which would connect the
rivers flowing within academia with those running outside it. Hardly any works
exist that relate the various turns in historiography to living experiences.
History is still treated as an abstract idea, another scholarly field or a
literary genre. If we apply to history the distinction made by Ferdinand de
Saussure between langue and parole, we could say history
is still studied as a langue and
rarely as a parole.
What is missing most from studies on the twentieth-century’s
preoccupations with history is an exploration of the inner and deeper
connection and interrelation between the various experiences of the century and
the various approaches to history. The twentieth century has been described as
‘the age of extremes’, as the century of catastrophic wars and genocides. It is
also the age of feminism, decolonization and techno-scientific evolutions. But
how are these experiences linked with historical schools, trends, methods and
practices? How have they contributed to our understanding of the past? How can
we relate history and historiography in the twentieth century?
In what ways has twentieth-century historical experience determined the
study of the past? What do disciplinary transformations in the fields of
feminist/women’s/gender history, written/oral/audiovisual history, public
history, and comparative/transnational history, for example, owe to changing
political, cultural and social perspectives and views? Are ‘disciplinary turns’
linked to ‘epochal turns’ and, if so, how are they linked in particular
contexts? How have common turns and particular/national methodologies
intermingled? How ‘French’ was the French histoire
totale, how ‘Italian’ was micro history, and what does new historicism owe
to the English intellectual tradition? What about forgotten or abandoned
historical trends and traditions? The ways in which they are connected with
historical experience and ways of remembrance is one of the key questions of
this conference. And are key concepts like truth, impartiality and objectivity
still valuable for historians, and how have these concepts changed from one era
to the next and from one cultural milieu to the other?
Transforming subjectivities is another
focus of the conference. How have historians conceptualized epochal turns or
specific historical facts, how have they experienced them, how have they
affected their changing perspectives and intellectual processes?
This conference will explore these connections between ‘inside’ and
‘outside’ processes and realities, between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ influences
and between ‘the academic’ and ‘the non-academic’ with regard to historical
thinking and feeling, in an attempt to trace the links between the different
forms of the historical, the
multiplicity of historical subjectivities (including the subjectivities of
historians themselves) and the various collective experiences of the twentieth
century.
We invite detailed proposals (max
700 words) that approach twentieth-century historiography in relation to
the various historical experiences of that century. Transnational and/or
‘transhistorical’ approaches are particularly welcome. Please include with your
proposal a short bio (max 100 words).
Deadline for
proposals: 30 September 2014
Notification
of acceptance: 30 November 2014
SCIENTIFIC
COMMITTEE
Stefan Berger (Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany)
Berber Bevernage (University of Ghent, Belgium)
Joanna de Groot (University of York, UK)
Katherine Fleming (New York University, USA)
Effi Gazi (University of Peloponnese, Greece)
Vangelis Karamanolakis (University of Athens, Greece)
Vangelis Kechriotis (Boğaziçi University, Turkey)
Antonis Liakos (University of Athens, Greece)
Masayuki Sato (University of Yamanashi, Japan)
CO-ORGANIZERS
University of the Peloponnese, Department
of Social and Education Policy (http://www.uop.gr/)
University of Athens, Faculty of History and
Archaeology (http://en.arch.uoa.gr/)
International Network for the Philosophy and Theory of
History (http://www.inth.ugent.be/)
Historein (http://www.historeinonline.org/)
Venue:
University of Athens, Central Building, Panepistimiou 30
CONTACT PERSON: Dr. Emilia
Salvanou, historiographia@gmail.com
