CfP: Dying and Death in 18th-21st Century Europe, International Conference

On behalf of the Scientific and Organizing Committee, we are very pleased to invite you to attend the eleventh edition of “Dying and Death in 18th-21st Century Europe, International Conference” (ABDD11), which will take place, as always, at the “1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia, Romania, between 26th and 28th September 2019.

With its unique friendly atmosphere, our interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary conference offers an excellent opportunity for academics, experts and practitioners from diverse fields such as history, sociology, anthropology, psychology, medicine, literary studies, theology, or architecture to network and to share knowledge, experiences and research findings on a variety of themes concerning death and dying, such as the followings:

• challenges of grieving in a digital age
• old and contemporary meanings of the ‘good’ death 
• ageing well, dying well and their reverses 
• death, dying and the postmodern search for meaning 
• the great equaliser and the socioeconomic inequalities in dying 
• death and dying within the entertainment industry
• dreaming, theorising and designing immortality today
• the rise of the undead in movies and game industry
• the art and rituals of photographing the dead nowadays
• (not so) changing attitudes towards death 
• new theories and ideologies of death
• cultural memory and the landscapes of death
• death anxiety and the promises of new age movement
• the dying brain: mind, identity, agency
• medicalization and de-medicalization of death
• suicide and capital punishment in times of ‘happiology’
• enduring ethical challenges of organ donation
• personal narratives of death and dying 

Those interested are invited to submit a proposal of roughly 250-300 words, followed by 3-5 key-words, no later than August 1, 2019 to both mrotar2000@yahoo.com and Adriana Teodorescu. Please include also a short bio of yourself, indicating your academic title/affiliation, research interests, significant publications etc. Authors will be notified of the abstract acceptance by August 10, 2019.

Selected papers could be considered for publication in a collective volume or in an international journal.

As our tradition demands, the karaoke show will be part of this edition too.

You will find more details here: http://death-studies.ro/abdd11/.

Contact Info: 

Adriana Teodorescu

Associate Lecturer

Babeș-Bolyai University

URL: http://death-studies.ro/abdd11/

CfP: The Red Cross Movement, Voluntary Organisations and Reconstruction in Western Europe in the 20th century

This one-day symposium will be held at the Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po (Paris, France) on Friday 12 June 2020.

This symposium intends to explore the ways in which non-government organisations have contributed to the reconstruction, and care for populations, in Western European countries such as France, the UK, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. It seeks to investigate how the Red Cross movement – the League of Red Cross Societies/International Federation of Red Cross/Red Crescent, the International Committee of Red Cross and individual national societies – alongside other voluntary organisations such as the Rockefeller Foundation, Save the Children and a range of other international and local non-government bodies, have contributed to reconstruction in these countries at both national and local levels following times of crises such as wars, civilian upheavals and natural disasters.

Please submit a 300-word abstract and a short biography by 21 September 2019 to humanitarianreconstruction@gmail.com. A few small travel grants will be available for PhD candidates and Early Career Researchers. Should you wish to apply for funding, please attach a budget to your application and a short rationale for the funding request. Please note that this symposium is focused toward the publication of new research.

Please see our website for detailed information about conference themes and questions.

Contact Info: 

Dr Romain Fathi

College of HASS

Flinders University, South Australia

Contact Email: humanitarianreconstruction@gmail.com

URL:https://sites.flinders.edu.au/resilient-humanitarianism/2019/06/11/the-red-cross-movement-voluntary-organisations-and-re...

CfP: Mountain Aesthetics and Ecology: The Conceptual Heritage of Alexander von Humboldt in the Americas (UNAM, Mexico City, Sept. 18-20, 2019)

Call for Proposals

Travel Grants for PhD students and recent PhDs

Mountain Aesthetics and Ecology: The Conceptual Heritage of Alexander von Humboldt in the Americas, an international, transdisciplinary colloquium, will take place in Mexico City at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) September 18-20, 2019 (plus an optional, half-day thematic excursion to museums and sites). Co-organized by the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas and the Terra Foundation for American Art, this colloquium will convene academics and curators, as well as geologists, artists, and philosophers to share recent work and analytic models for engaging with the legacy of Alexander von Humboldt.

For a brief description of the concept, format, and a list of confirmed speakers see below.

As part of this project, funding is available to offset the costs of travel for advanced PhD students and recent PhDs working in this field of art history, focused on geo-aesthetics and eco-criticism. Grant amounts will be calculated based on the travel needs of successful applicants. Travel grant recipients will also have the opportunity to share a ten minute presentation on their own work.

Applicants are invited to submit a current CV and a 500 word proposal outlining how participation in this colloquium relates to and would benefit their current research. Please send application materials via email no later than July 26, 2019 to:

Peter Krieger, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas

Concept, Format, and Confirmed Speakers

Alexander von Humboldt is the founding father of a global “Mountain Geo-Ecology”. His geological and botanical explorations of the mountain regions in the Spanish colonial Americas was guided by an aesthetic understanding of landscapes. He inspired many contemporary landscape painters in the Americas, and he also innovated the graphic representation of scientific research related to the botanical and geophysical conditions of mountains. With the differentiation of disciplines that split the sciences and the humanities at universities during the nineteenth century, the application of Humboldt’s transdisciplinary, global, and critical model of environmental research was dispersed across the academy and eventually dismissed altogether.

CfP: NeMLA 2020: Psychoanalysis and Laughter: Unconscious Meanings and Political Subversions

In his famous study on “Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious," Freud argues that jokes, and the laughter they elicit, allow a kind of access to the unconscious. They permit, among other things, the fulfillment of repressed desires, the channeling of aggression into an acceptable social form, and polysemic satisfaction. As the structure of a joke operates similarly to the structure of a dream (by condensation and displacement, metaphor and metonymy), it also enables the revelation of contemporary ideology and its ambiguities. Further, for Lacan, with the child’s “jubilant assumption of his [sic] specular image” in the mirror, laughter coincides with the ego's coming-into-being. Laughter is also connected to the phallus—and therefore castration—which easily produces laughter, for instance in the constant failure of male courting and adultery in the French Vaudeville, or in the laughter by which we cope with the failure of the sexual relation. Laughter is both imaginary and symbolic, and for Lacan it is also linked to jouissance and thus the Real. The outburst of excessive laughter without reason, the repeated failure of pronouncing a word correctly or the constant incapability of controlling one’s own body—for instance in slapstick—move beyond the socially accepted and hence produce an ambivalent laughter. They reveal the presence of the Real in everyday life alongside the stubborn ambiguity of signifiers and the limits of meaning. Furthermore, both satire and black comedy allow us to subversively approach difficult political and moral questions. Laughter and comedy therefore permeate, reveal, and subvert our identities and social existences.

This seminar seeks papers that deal with the relationship between psychoanalysis and laughter. Questions for consideration could include:

What are the connections between laughter, psychoanalysis, ideology, and politics today? Is a joke still a joke if it loses the capability of playing around freely, even (or especially) with “master signifiers”? Is laughter nowadays "free" or censored, and what does laughter at (or proscription of) the vulgar, distasteful, or “offensive” reveal about our unconscious? Our jouissance? (Why) is sex funny? Does satire work? Is contemporary mass media just a naïve (or even sadistic) pastime as Adorno and Horkheimer claim or is, to the contrary, comedy a preferred medium of acting out (hidden) social criticism in post-postmodernist times?

Please submit abstrats by September 30, 2020, at the following link: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/18121. 

Contact Info: Matthew Lovett, University of Pittsburgh

Julia Brühne, University of Bremen

URL: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/18121

CfP: The History of Bureaucratic Knowledge: Global Comparisons, c.1200- c.1900

We are delighted to announce that The History of Bureaucratic Knowledge: Global Comparisons, c. 1200- c. 1900 has been selected as the inaugural special theme issue of the Journal for the History of Knowledge. Edited by Sebastian Felten and Christine von Oertzen, it will appear in 2020.

To quote from the proposal:

"This collective publication makes the claim that the history of bureaucracy is, at its core, a history of bureaucratic knowledge. It is therefore best studied with the methods developed to historicize scientific practices. We follow knowledge-making practices as they moved across company headquarters, government bureaus, the study, and the field. In fact, fundamental practices such as writing, calculation, and record-keeping flourished first to administer states before they were used to study nature. The entwined history of science and bureaucracy is increasingly coming into focus, as the history of science continues to broaden into the history of knowledge. Furthermore, colonial historians, anthropologists, and media scholars have come to study the epistemic power of states with approaches that are comparable to those used by historians of science. In short, our volume comes at a critical juncture in the development of disciplines that study knowledge in the past and that make these investigations relevant to current policy concerns.”

Visit the website www.journalhistoryknowledge.org to follow the publication of this issue. We expect that the call for the next special issue, to be published in 2021, will be posted in July.

CfP: Museum Media(ting): Emerging Technologies and Difficult Heritage

This edited volume with the working title “Museum Media(ting): Emerging Technologies and Difficult Heritage” examines theoretical approaches and case studies that demonstrate how emerging technologies can display, reveal and negotiate difficult, dissonant, negative or undesirable heritage. We are particularly interested in how emerging technologies in museums have the potential to reveal unheard or silenced stories, challenge preconceptions, encourage emotional responses, introduce the unexpected, and overall provide alternative experiences. By emerging technologies, we refer to contemporary advances and innovations in technology such as virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, holograms, artificial intelligence, gamification, smart systems, etc.

How can museums, with the help of technology, manage to tell unheard stories, touch upon issues of difficult heritage, and narrate stories of unprivileged groups of people such as minorities, women, LBTG, immigrants, etc.? How can museums explore alternative sides of history, different from the political/ diplomatic/ military history which is the norm, such as social history, history of education, history of migration, etc., giving therefore emphasis not so much on the knowledge/ collection of information, but to multiperspectivity, inclusiveness, tolerance and social cohesion? How and to what extent the use of technology in museums/ art spaces, facilitates the understanding of issues dealing with contested history? How can emerging technologies provide not only cognitive experiences but also affective ones?

The volume may include chapters that deal with the following themes:

• Emerging technologies in museums
• Innovative interactive media/ installations
• Art and technology for difficult heritage
• Crowdsourcing/ participatory methods
• Oral histories and emerging technologies
• Deep mapping approaches
• Affective responses
• Cultural tourism and difficult or dark heritage
• Alternative experiences
• Evaluation studies of specific applications of emerging technologies used for exploring difficult heritage in museums
• Other themes related to the key questions of the call

The papers can be theoretical in nature or/ and explore specific case studies. We encourage proposals that demonstrate specific uses of emerging technologies in museums and other cultural sites as well as evaluation studies.

The volume will be edited by Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert (Cyprus University of Technology/ Research Centre on Interactive Media, Smart Systems and Emerging Technologies - RISE), Antigone Heraclidou (Research Centre on Interactive Media, Smart Systems and Emerging Technologies - RISE) and Alexandra Bounia (UCL Qatar/ University of the Aegean) and will be published by a well-known academic publisher.

To submit an abstract please send a 500-word abstract (including references) and a short bio for each author (up to 70 words each) to Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert and Antigone Heraclidou   by July 30th 2019. Applicants will receive a response within a month’s time. The selected authors will be expected to deliver a full paper (length: 6000- 8000 words) by January 15th 2020.

Contact Info: 

To submit an abstract please send a 500-word abstract (including references) and a short bio for each author (up to 70 words each) to Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert and Antigone Heraclidou by July 30th 2019.

TEN 1-year Post-doctoral offers at EHESS - deadlin: July 26, 2019

https://www.ehess.fr/fr/recrutement/recrutement-10-post-doctorantes-lehess-en-2019

The job description is in French, but applicatons may be made in English, as long as you are ready to spend a year in a French-speaking environment. 

10 research topics have been suggested:

1- L’environnement en Asie orientale et septentrionale

2- Droit et catégories coloniales

3- Le tournant numérique dans les mobilités et l’aménagement urbain

4- Penser avec le droit : philosophie et sciences sociales

5- Enjeux sociaux et politiques de la santé

6- Techniques, objets, matérialités

7- Politiques, institutions et organisations scientifiques dans le monde socialiste et post-socialiste

8- Données environnementales : infrastructures, marchés, régulations et contestations

9- Mobilisations collectives et groupes d’intérêt

10- Discriminations et inégalités au travail 

CfP: The World and Other Worlds: Imagining the Universe in the Eighteenth Century

Panel Description: As we may note from René Descartes’s Discours de la méthode and Isaac Newton’s Principia and Opticks, scientific discoveries have had a profound impact on the culture and writings of the long eighteenth century. Though much has been written on the scientific popularization of these texts within the Republic of Letters, with exception of Steven J. Dick, Michael Crowe, and more recently, Frédérique Aït-Touati, comparably little has been remarked on a notable by-product of scientific writing and revolutionary thought: the plurality of worlds. Since Galileo’s discovery of lunar craters and mountains in 1609, writers and scientists such as Johannes Kepler, Cyrano de Bergerac, Voltaire, and Daniel Jost de Villeneuve de Listonai have imagined life on other planets as well as the societies that exist on them. In certain cases, speculation on extraterrestrial life, such as those of Descartes and Fontenelle, have merely explored an expected universal order. In other short stories or contes, namely Micromégas or l’Autre Monde, writers have taken the concept of a plurality of worlds and applied it either positively or negatively to their society. We can thus note roughly two different tracks: the technical and the proto-utopian. This panel seeks to explore the following: to what degree do these two tracks intersect? Do they yield a different subgenre altogether? Can we indeed discuss ‘fiction scientifique’ as a unique genre in the long eighteenth century?

We welcome any papers that deal with these essential questions.  Intersections with Asian and Middle Eastern literatures on the concept of the plurality of worlds during the same time period are especially welcome. Please send as one submission (1) a paper abstract of no more than 250 words, (2) a brief biography of 100 words, and (3) any potential audiovisual requirements to Ari Margolin at margolan@colorado.edu by September 15, 2019.

Please note that you will be required to become a member of ASECS (American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies) by January 2020 in order to participate in the conference. 

Contact Info: 

Ari Margolin, Colorado College

Royal Society Lisa Jardine Grant Scheme open for applications

The Lisa Jardine Grant of the Royal Society is currently open for applications and there is still a month left to apply (applications close 8 Aug 2019, 3pm)

The grant is available to PhD students and early career researchers in history of science, and other interdisciplinary studies combining humanities and the natural sciences.

The scheme offers funding for:

·         Extended research trips for UK and overseas-based researchers to use the Royal Society’s own rich historical collections (up to £8,000 available for travel and subsistence costs depending on length and destination of research, 1 - 3 months)

·         UK-based students wishing to travel overseas to carry out short, exploratory archival research trips (up to £2,000 available for trips up to 1 month)

·         International travel and expenses for UK based students to attend conferences and networking or training events (up to £2,000 available for trips up to 1 month)

The grant is open to researchers based in cultural organisations such as museums and archives as well as universities.

Full details, eligibility conditions and application portal are available online: http://bit.ly/LJRSMai

Santorio Award for Excellence in Research

This award is designed to support scholarly excellence in intellectual history and to promote the best PhD theses in the history of medicine and science with a focus on European and the Western traditions (widely construed, including interactions with, and borrowings from, other cultures/traditions/practices around the Mediterranean, especially Arabic and Hebrew) throughout the period 1100-1800. It is named after the Italian physician and philosopher Santorio Santori (1561-1636), who is considered the father of quantitative experimental physiology.

Nature of the Award

The award consists of a cash prize (for the first position) plus a medal and a publication for the two first selected works with the seriesPalgrave Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine (editors: J. Barry and F. Bigotti).

1st  Place:       € 1.500 + medal + publication

2nd Place:                       medal + publication

Publication is agreed separately by the editors of the series upon the whole work passing the double peer-review process.

Eligibility

The award is open to PhD students and early career scholars of all nationalities within six years from their viva (not prior to 1st June 2013).

Application Process

Applicants should send a cover letter with the index of their thesis plus a significant chapter of it to csmbr@fondazionecomel.org. Each applicant will then select one referee, better if the PhD supervisor, who will be sending their reference letter separately to the head of the scientific committee at psmemm@fondazionecomel.org.

Closing date for Application: 

25 February 2020 with successful applicants notified in early May.

Ceremony Award

Successful applicants will receive their award during the last day of the 2020 CSMBR conference, whose date will be communicated later this year, and invited to present a paper on their thesis.

For further information please contact csmbr@fondazionecomel.org or visit csmbr.fondazionecomel.org.