Afterlives of violence: contested geographies of past, present and future

Afterlives of violence: contested geographies of past, present and future
A one-day, interdisciplinary conference at the University of Brighton, 29th June 2017
10-5 in M2 Boardroom, Grand Parade – registration from 9
Keynote address from Berber Bevernage, Ghent University
Organised by the Centre for Research in Memory, Narrative and Histories and the Critical Studies Research Group.

Traces of the past (including past futures) have the potential to unsettle linear understandings of time underpinning discourses that aim to draw a line between the past and the present. Such material legacies become subject to a complex articulation of contested regimes of visibility, readership and belonging that can also be explored in their material and spatial implications.

The aim of this postgraduate conference is to expand traditional understandings of the politics of memory and to highlight the relationship between spatiality and temporality. Important questions and areas of exploration involve, among others; how can we best approach, both methodologically and theoretically, spaces haunted by violent events? How can we best account for the multidirectional constellation of repetitions, anticipations and repressed returns in its geographical manifestations?
Topics to be covered might include:

• Politics of time
• chronopolitics
• Spectral geographies, haunting and place
• Ruins and processes of ruination
• Contested geographies of memory, memoryscapes
• Transitional justice and temporal difference
• Landscapes of futurity, hope
• Urban and rural memories
• Politics of heritage and tourism
• Time and postcolonial theory
• Oral history and time
• Time and the body
• Landscapes of memorialisation
• New materialist archaeologies
• Geographies of absence/presence
• Queer time(s)
• Monuments and memorials
• Rhythms of everyday life
• Mnemohistory and space

There is no registration fee. We welcome proposals of no more than 300 words for 20-minute papers.
Please submit your abstract by Friday 19th May 2017 to violentafterlives@gmail.com