Call for Papers: Do-It-Yourself! Subversive Practices and Informal Knowledge
Call for Papers: Do-It-Yourself! Subversive Practices and
Informal Knowledge
Annual Conference of the Leibniz Graduate School
“History, Knowledge, Media in East Central Europe”
19-20 November 2015
Venue: The Herder Institute for Historical Research on
East Central Europe – Institute of the Leibniz Association, Gisonenweg 5-7,
35037 Marburg
Organizers: Sarah Czerney, Jan Surman, Ina Alber
The idea of doing-it-yourself, tinkering and bricolage
can be found at all times and everywhere: dissidents print their samizdat
publications on re-designed washing machines, do-it-yourselfers spend hours in
cellars and sheds, amateur inventors hope for their creations to breakthrough,
technicians supplement their laboratory equipment with everyday materials or
combine different instruments, scientists search for alternative forms of
academic exchange in BarCamps. In order to re-arrange the objects and to bring
them together in new ensembles - to give them new purposes and functions - one
needs innovation and virtuosity. In this way new objects and new forms of
knowledge develop in the shadowy corridors of doing it yourself. But can this
kind of knowledge make its way into the daylight?
“Do it yourself” is a cultural practice that transcends
societies and times. In times of shortages doing it yourself offers
alternatives to official resources. During the last years the idea of “do it
yourself” has served as critique towards capitalism as well, for instance when
producing new things out of recycled waste. In each of these ways do it yourself
functions as an anti-pole to the officially regulated and controlled
administration of resources. But it can also be politically instrumentalized
and become part of mainstream culture like Zrób-to-sam or the Do-It-Yourself
movement in the 1970s in East and West. Hollywood sitcoms like Home Improvement
turned these developments into popular culture and profit. Does such
affiliation mean do-it-yourself-knowledge loses its subversive potential?
Our conference focuses on these heterogeneous forms of
do-it-yourself and bricolage, and analyzes both the practices and the knowledge
that are being produced by them: What was done in such way in different times
and contexts and how was it done? What materials and media were combined? What
does one do by him/herself? How can the concept of informal knowledge be used
to understand such phenomena and what is its relation to formal and regulated
knowledge? And who decides what is formal and informal here? How can a
do-it-yourself-knowledge be subversive? Under what conditions can such a
knowledge be socially relevant?
We open these questions to scholars of different epochs
and disciplines, as well as activists, who are all invited to join us in the
project of doing-it-together. We are interested in case studies from different
fields and regions as well as personal accounts of subversive do-it-yourself
activities.
Abstracts may be submitted in English or German; the
conference will be bilingual and there will be no simultaneous translation. The
organizers expect that the participants will be able to follow the papers in both
languages, longer bilingual abstracts will be provided in advance. Travel and
accommodation costs for the speakers will be covered.
Please send your abstract (maximum of 2,000 characters)
as well as a short CV with details of your current research interests and
recent publications by 28 February 2015 to Ina Alber (ina.alber@herder-institut.de<mailto:ina.alber@herder-institut.de>).
Accepted speakers will be notified by 15 April 2015.
For further inquiries, please contact the managing
director of the Leibniz Graduate School, Ina Alber.
Contact:
Dr. des. Ina Alber
Herder-Institut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung
-Institut der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft
Gisonenweg 5-7, 35037 Marburg, GERMANY
Tel: +49 6421 184-122
Fax: +49 6421 184-194
www.herder-institut.de<http://www.herder-institut.de>,
www.facebook.com/HerderInstitut<http://www.facebook.com/HerderInstitut>
--
Dr. Jan Surman
wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
Leibniz Graduate School “Geschichte, Wissen, Medien in
Ostmitteleuropa”
Herder-Institut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung
Gisonenweg 5-7
D-35037 Marburg
Tel.: +49 6421 1754983
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Leibniz Graduate School “History, Knowledge, Media in
East Central Europe”
Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central
Europe Gisonenweg 5-7
D-35037 Marburg
Tel.: +49 6421 1754983