Call for Papers
Concentrationary Imaginaries/ Imaginaries of Violence in Contemporary Cultures and Cultural Forms
Keynote Speakers:
Adriana Cavarero (Verona)
Paul Gilroy (London School of Economics)
Paul Virilio (TBC)
An international transdisciplinary conference organised by the AHRC Research Project Concentrationary Memories: The Politics of Representation 2007-2011 directed by Professors Griselda Pollock (CentreCATH) and Max Silverman (CFFCS)
Date: April 13-15 2011
To be held at the University of Leeds
Our research into the politics of representation of the concentrationary after 1945 aims to pose the following questions:
Has any aspect of the ‘concentrationary universe’ (Rousset), the sociological experiment in total destruction of humanity in which ‘everything is possible’ (Arendt) seeped into and been disseminated through contemporary culture? Is there evidence of a concentrationary imaginary in contemporary culture?
Far from being contained as a one-off, geopolitically contained event, the concentrationary and its horrific extension, the exterminationary, initiated the political novelty that Arendt defined as totalitarianism. Totalitarianism was an experiment in the destruction of the human, the human being identified by Arendt, in the aftermath of that attempted destruction , as spontaneity and plurality.
In this conference we wish to investigate the diverse and often oblique manifestations of the legacies of the concentrationary in various forms of contemporary culture from literature to cinema and video games. Can aspects of the increasing obsessions with violence in media culture be related to an unacknowledged concentrationary legacy? Where is the concentrationary most visible? Is it identifiable by a lack of conscious memory that might continuously warn of its menace? In what forms has the concentrationary continued in political realisations but, significantly for our research, in imagination and in imaginary forms? Where might we locate its signs? What are its effects on the subjectivities such cultural manifestations help to shape?
We invite proposals for 20 minute papers to be submitted by email (forms are available online, see the link below). Submission deadline is 1 August 2010; all abstracts must be sent electronically to conmem@leeds.ac.uk. Selected papers will be notified in September 2010. We shall also invite the selected participants to submit their papers in advance of the conference for review and publication during the conference. Further details will be given to the relevant contributors after paper selection is completed.
The following are suggested areas for an investigation of the emergence, persistence and transmogrification of a concentrationary imaginary in contemporary culture as an essential part of a cultural-political challenge to its continuing threat:
Post-Holocaust Political Theory
Fascinating Fascism
Science Fiction and the Concentrationary Empire
Contemporary Apocalyptic Art : Images of Fear
Popular Culture, Racism and Others
Counter-concentrationary Imaginaries
Dark Times: Arendt’s Legacies in Cultural Theory and Practice
Cinema and the Concentrationary Imaginary
Identifying Sites of Cruelty
Agamben and Culture
Download the form: Word; Rich Text Format
and send electronically to: conmem@leeds.ac.uk