CfP: XVIII Universeum Meeting - 8-10 June 2017
XVIII UNIVERSEUM NETWORK MEETING
University of Belgrade, Serbia, 8-10 June 2016
Mobility of University Heritage
The European Academic Heritage Network UNIVERSEUM announces its 18th Annual Meeting.
UNIVERSEUM
is concerned with academic heritage in its broadest sense, including
university collections, museums, archives, libraries, botanical gardens,
astronomical observatories, and university buildings of historical,
artistic and scientific significance.
We invite
you to submit papers to one of the sessions below. Papers in the
thematic sessions 1, 2 and 3 need to present an argument that can be
discussed. Descriptive presentations can be submitted to the poster
session (session 4).
1. THEMATIC SESSIONS on Mobility of University Heritage
Oral 15-min papers followed by 5 min discussion
In
Europe, where people and goods move more or less freely, the mobility
of museum collections has been researched and promoted over the past
decade. Mobility of collections demands implementation of different
practices, such as mobility of exhibitions, loan policies, ethical and
legal issues, collection information management and dissemination. But
can we speak in the same terms and identify similar practices when
referring to academic heritage and its mobility? What does the
musealisation of a university's material and immaterial culture entail?
How do universities move collections in their everyday operation?
This
is one way of understanding mobility. The sessions will focus on
mobility in the broadest sense, i.e. also in terms of dynamical
displays, changing spaces, as well as on the dynamics of changing
interdisciplinary approaches to academic heritage interpretation and
presentation.
We welcome in-depth papers that will help us to
exchange experiences and identify current good practices and
case-studies, in order to discuss present and arising challenges related
to the mobility of university heritage in Europe now and in the years
to come.
2. THEMATIC SPECIAL SESSION on Historical University Architectural Heritage, Recent Buildings and Large Installations
Oral 5-min papers, followed by in-depth debate
What
happens to the built university environment when objects, collections
and people move on? The buildings of a university constitute an
important part of its academic heritage while the protection and
promotion of architecture is often treated separately from the
protection and promotion of its collections and archives. With
laboratory science and big installations, buildings have become
increasingly inseparable from the instrumentation they house, which has
been the case for astronomical observatories since antiquity. What about
historical artistically valuable buildings that are currently used by
universities for research, teaching or administrative activities? What
part of their architectural heritage should universities preserve? How
can universities manage and promote their architectural heritage?
This session aims at collecting short and precise arguments and to launch an in-depth discussion on these various questions.
3. THEMATIC SPECIAL SESSION on Human remains in university collections
Oral 5-min papers (max. 6), followed by in-depth debate:
From
anatomy to archaeology and anthropology, university collections are
full of human remains, which were collected, prepared, and preserved as
part of research and teaching activities. The management of these
collections is a delicate issue. How to deal with collections of skulls,
mummified bodies or body parts, samples of human remains, how to
preserve them, present them to public and transmit them to future
generations?
This session aims to debate the main issues, some
possible solutions and ethical approaches that are currently developed
in relation with human remains collections in European universities.
4. POSTER SESSION
We
invite presentations of scientific programs, technical issues of and
around collections such as storage, preservation and documentation, as
well as descriptions of museums, collections and other heritage.
Presentations of cultural projects and questions related to the
promotion of university heritage are also welcome.
This year,
as a special topic for Universeum 2017 Poster Session, we encourage the
presentation of posters on Preventive Conservation and Disaster Planning
for university heritage (policies, technical issues, etc).
The conference language is English. Post‐graduate students are encouraged to present.
Abstracts for session 1, 2 & 3 need to include: i) introduction/problematic/conte
Please
send abstract proposals (max. 200 words), with an indication of the
session you are submitting to, plus a short biographical note
highlighting main research interests and/or field of professional
experience (max. 50 words) to the following email address before 28
February 2017: universeum2017@rect.bg.ac.rs
The abstract template is available at: http://universeum.it/meetings
The website of the meeting will be available in the next days.