An interdisciplinary, one-day conference at the University of Brighton

Research on the complex inter–relations between past, present and future in the time after political violence often leads us to question and push the boundaries of established theories and methods. Increasingly, work in this area reflects a critical awareness of the different modalities of time and memory within and across various post-conflict contexts. That being said, more can be done to further methodological and theoretical links between different approaches to studying time, memory and conflict. This can take the form ofresearch into unexplored contexts, or critical reflections on established frameworks and debates.

Bringing together scholars from an array of different intellectual fields, this conference aims to encourage a set of conversations on how we might approach and understand the multi-directional interplay between experiences and representations of a ‘past’ that in many ways is not ‘over’, but which overshadows the present and complicates the imagining of the future. Key questions and areas of exploration are: What are the ethical and political commitments of research in post-conflict contexts? How does this research relate to questions of positionality? How might new research areas or critical reflections on established practical and theoretical approaches further our understanding of time, memory and conflict?

Keynote Address: ‘Post-conflict Futures: Temporal Orientations After Catastrophe”, Prof. Rebecca Bryant, University of Utrecht, Netherlands:

9.30 – 10.00 Registration

10.00 – 10.15 Welcome

10.15 – 11.45 Panel 1 – Representations of conflict pasts

Kasia Tomasiewicz (University of Brighton) ‘Changing representation of the Second World War in the Imperial War Museum, London’

Marco Sottilotta (University of Rome) ‘Contested Heritage and Regimes of Historicity. Past, Present and Future in the Kingdom of Buganda’

Ian Cantoni (University of Brighton) ‘Spaces of liminality: On the threshold of memory at the Mémorial du Camp de Rivesaltes’

11.45 – 12.00 Tea and Coffee

12.00 – 13.30 Panel 2 – Generational memory of conflict

Kate Newby (University of Brighton) “Nothing happened to me”: The ‘speakable’ and ‘hearable’ in personal narratives of youth experience during the Northern Irish conflict, 1969-1998’

Silvia Menendez Alcalde (The Centre for Justice and Peacebuilding) ‘The sociocultural impact of the Spanish 1977 Amnesty Law: A Generational Perspective’

Lisa van Dijck (Independent Researcher) Generational memory and the Second World War

13.30 – 14.15 Lunch

14.15 – 15.15 Panel 3 – Exclusion and the ‘Politics of Forgetting’

Peter Morgan (University of Brighton) ‘The British discourse on the mass killing of civilians during the Armenian genocide of WW1’

Alice Tofts (University of Nottingham) ‘To silence or prompt memory: The case of private photographs of victims of Nazi persecution.”

15.15 – 15.30 Tea and Coffee

15.30 – 16.30 Keynote Address Rebecca Bryant (University of Utrecht)

16:30 Closing Remarks

Registration: 
The event is free, but you must register in order to attend.

Venue:

M2 Boardroom, Grand Parade Building, 68-72 Grand Parade, Brighton BN2 0JY.

The Grand Parade building is located in the centre of Brighton, almost opposite the Royal Pavilion, and about 10 minutes’ walk from Brighton station.

Image: © IWM (Art.IWM ART LD 2350)