[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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