[URBANTH-L] CFP: Remembering War, Genocide and other Human Rights Violations: Oral History, New Media and the Arts (Quebec)

Angela Jancius jancius3022 at comcast.net
Fri Mar 13 11:52:44 EDT 2009


Remembering War, Genocide and other Human Rights Violations:
Oral History, New Media and the Arts

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

November 5-8, 2009
The Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling
& the Montreal Life Stories Project
Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Proposals Due: Monday April 13, 2009

It has frequently been said that we live in an "age of testimony." Eye- 
witness accounts from survivors of war, genocide and other human  
rights violations fill our airwaves and our bookshelves. Large  
Holocaust testimony projects such as Steven Spielberg's Survivors of  
the Shoah Visual History Foundation have recorded tens of thousands of  
survivors. Thousands more have told their horrific stories to truth  
and reconciliation commissions and international tribunals in a  
growing number of countries including Canada.

Oral history, we believe, has a pivotal role to play in educating  
ourselves and our communities about the social preconditions,  
experiences and long-term repercussions of war, genocide and other  
human rights abuses (broadly defined). What do people remember and  
why? How have we approached the interview? Digital technologies and  
the arts have likewise opened up new possibilities for community  
engagement and research. In what ways have we incorporated the life  
stories of survivors in art, documentary media and practice,  
performance, museum exhibition, classroom pedagogy, and other digital  
environments?  When is oral history and storytelling a catalyst for  
collective dialogue and political action?  Digital technologies and  
the arts have opened up exciting new possibilities for community  
engagement and research. How do we share the stories that we record?

We invite proposals in English and French from a wide range of  
community-based projects, university researchers, artists and  
educators, whose work is publicly engaged and intellectually  
consequential. Please indicate if you are proposing an individual  
presentation or panel session, one hour workshop, short performance,  
film screening/discussion, or booth/display. We are hoping to avoid  
concurrent sessions if possible. You are asked to submit a 250 word  
proposal, curriculum vitae, and a short biographical statement (to be  
placed on the web site if your proposal is accepted) by Monday April  
13, 2009. Please send your proposals to Steven High, Canada Research  
Chair in Public History, at shigh at alcor.concordia.ca .

The conference is co-sponsored by the Centre for Oral History and  
Digital Storytelling at Concordia University (http://storytelling.concordia.ca 
  ) and the Life Stories of Montrealers displaced by War and Genocide  
project (www.lifestoriesmontreal.ca ), an ambitious five year  
Community University Research Alliance that is comprised of 40  
researchers and 18 community partners from the city's Rwandan,  
Cambodian, Jewish and Haitian communities as well as arts, education  
and human rights organizations. A publication, perhaps an anthology,  
is expected to result.


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