Justice: Memory, Narration and Culture

This line of research aims to construct a theory of justice that truly takes into account and relates the dimensions of time, space, narration and cultural diversity.

• The temporal dimension of justice raises the role of memory within the theory of justice. This approach allows us to construct a theory of historical responsibility, of the place of past injustices in the present, and of the political significance of historical memory. A theory of justice which takes memory into account is novel, hence the need to construct a set of tools for argument for this new task. That is what we intend to do, with the incorporation of narration. Thanks to the stories we tell, figures like the witness or the victim take on key roles in the theory of justice.
• The spatial dimension of justice is expressed in the modern concept of global justice. In an economically globalised world, justice transcends State borders and obliges us to consider it globally. In an approach of this kind, poverty in the world, or the phenomena of exclusion, question the concept of justice. One aspect that is linked to global justice, and which will be studied in our research, is the need for institutional innovation, both political and judicial. This has already been initiated with the creation of the International Criminal Court.
• The narrative dimension relates to the active participation in the construction of dynamic networks of values that articulate the polis and crystallise the social and cultural tensions present therein. The dialectic pace of narrative and iconographic production of spatial-temporal justice, as well as its cultural impact, has consequences of great importance in the construction of societies and in the birth of new forms of community.
• The dimension of cultural diversity relates to the “cultural turn” in human and social sciences and the relevance of this turn for a theory of justice which must take into account the intersection of global and local processes, the meeting places and the subjection of alterity, with their narrative and iconographic, socio-political and institutional expressions, wherein emerge the identities and senses of justice that persist and change through time.

Call for Papers

VI International Symposium

Justice, Memory, Narration & Culture

&

III International Symposium The Novelized Memory

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MEMORY & NARRATION

Transnational Influences and Local Contexts

Madrid. 11-13 November, 2013

http://jusmenacu.net/

 Sala Menéndez Pidal (0E18)

Centro de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas, CSIC

C/ Albasanz 26-28. Madrid

Organisers:

Justicia: Memoria, Narración y cultura(JUSMENACU, CCHS)

The research group The Novelized Memory,

Department of Aesthetics and Communication - Spanish

Aarhus University (Denmark)

Funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research, the Humanities (FKK)

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Coordinators:

Francisco Colom (CSIC) - Juan Carlos Cruz (Univ. de  Aarhus)

This is an interdisciplinary congress organised as a result of a shared research interest of the above-mentioned organisers. Its aim is to bring together different fields of the Humanities on the proposed topic in order to open up for new approaches, methodologies and ideas.

Programme

•  11th November– First Plenary Session / Panels 1 & 2

•  12th November – Second Plenary Session / Panels 3 & 4

•  13th November – Seminar realised by the organising

•  groups (open for the public). The subject of the seminar corresponds to the main title of the congress.

Proposal of Papers

• The Abstracts of the paper proposals should directly addressed to the organizers of each panel.

• The deadline for the proposal of papers is the 20th of July. Please note that abstracts received later than this date will not be admitted.

• Abstracts are limited to a minimum of 5,000 and a maximum of 6,000 characters.

• Along with the abstract participants are asked to enclose a CV.

• Once admitted the abstracts will be announced on the JUSMENACU web page.

• We kindly ask the participants to keep in mind that abstracts are expected to be strictly original.

Panels

Note: Each panel will consist of a maximum of 4 papers

Panel 1:  LITERARY DYNAMICS. CHARACTERISTICS OF LOCAL MEMORIALISTIC LITERATURE WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF TRANSNATIONAL COLLECTIVE MEMORY

Coordinator: Juan Carlos Cruz Suárez (the Novelized Memory group)

Contact: romjccs [at] hum.au.dk

The explicit reference to the possible existence of transnational collective memory refers to the conception of a common discursive framework (and maybe even a set of schematic narrative templates) in which the memorialistic narratives of a certain international community are inserted. The aim of the panel is to comprise a range of different studies that focus on local literary memoralistic narratives that together with other literary expressions of a determined community allow us to distinguish between the distinctive – that is the inclination towards identity aspects – and the interaction that the very same discourses establish with other collective memories within a transnational framework. In that respect our interest is not restricted to designating the formal perspectives of the representations; instead we aim at focusing on how the formal aspects that coexist in the transnational memorialistic narratives obtain meaning, adapt or are confused when they enter the local or national sphere. Finally the panel wishes to open up for further reflection on the question. In accordance with the study of the nodal points that the different local memories frame, is it even possible to talk about a global or transnational memorialistic poetic?

Panel 2:  CINEMATISED MEMORY. PERFORMANCE, RECEPTION & AUDIOVISUAL RE-MEDIATION

Coordinator: Memorias en Red (memoriasenred.tumblr.com)

Contact: Lidia Mateo (lidia.mateo [at] cchs.csic.es)

Marije Hristova (marije.jusie.dijkstra [at] cchs.csic.es)

The potential of the media to create reality makes them an efficient artefact of collective memory, as it produces events and subjectivities, that is, effects and affects, and in this way they elaborate on different forms of perception of the world and the subject itself. This performative capacity of the media -from documental or fiction cinema to video art and television series- has become a genuine battlefield where the disputes and negotiations of memory discourses are generated and materialised. What is the relation between the power of the media and their reception and public reach? How do the media contribute to transforming certain discourses and local memories into transnational tropes or meanings? What are the narrative strategies or audiovisual techniques employed, and how do they affect the stories themselves? In what degree have the media contributed to or restricted the processes of memorialisation? We invite researchers and audiovisual directors whose work focuses on the processes of memory to contribute to a

critical discussion of the above-mentioned questions from different fields and perspectives. We particularly encourage the participation of young scholars who wish to share their recent research.

PANEL 3: THE NATIONAL NARRATIVE. HISTORIOGRAPHIC, ARTISTIC & ACADEMIC DISCOURSES IN THE NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL IDENTITIES

Coordinator: Francisco Colom – Juan José Villarías (CCHS-CSIC)

Contact: elrelatonacional [at] gmail.com

National imagination relies on narrative elaboration of specific forms of identity and historicity. Through the invention of a national time and the identification with it lived time, the lived time is inserted into the historical time. This kind of historic imagination is linked to the corresponding narrative of collective identity. However, important connotations exist in the different ways of imagining a nation, since not all nations are imagined in the same way, nor are the consequences of the different historical imaginations necessarily the same. The plot of the national story – the landmarks, the myths and the representations that singularise the story – is expressed through narrative and iconic resources that can be traced in the different spheres of the official culture, from historiographical narratives to museums, academies and scholarly syllabus. This panel invites papers that deal with the production of national historic discourse in the areas of historiography, museology and different forms of artistic expression.

Panel 4: MIGRATIONS & EXILES. DISCOURSES & NARRATIONS/NARRATIVES

This session welcomes papers focusing on the different types of discourses – political, media, literary, cinematographic etc. – that deal with the migratory experience and the memory of exiles in the context of contemporary history. We especially appreciate contributions that accentuate the bonds and interrelations generated across borders and their contribution to the construction of identity and transnational practices.

Coordinator: Juan Carlos Velasco (IFS-CSIC)

Contact: jc.velasco [at] csic.es

Plenary sessions

At present we can confirm the attendance of Professor Sebastiaan Faber as keynote speaker. Shortly we expect to announce the participation of a second keynote speaker. At the same time, we are pleased to be able to confirm that Professor Reyes Mate will take part in the seminar on 13 November realised by the two organiser groups.