Сonference «History, Memory, and Nostalgia: Literary and Cultural Representations» (Vilnius, September 29 — October 1, 2016)

Full program:

https://lautenglish.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/hymnos_programme_updated.pdf

The Department of English Philology at Vilnius University, Lithuania, in cooperation with the Lithuanian Association for the Study of English (LAUTE)

The eve of the new age has alerted us to the conflicted nature of historical memory that defined the 20th century while simultaneously assaulting us with new historical upheavals that demand responsibility and critical consideration. Records of historical experience and historical negotianism have been shown to be inextricably bound to power structures, institutional dynamics, currents of globalization, social dreams, and personal desires. The premise of this interdisciplinary conference is to examine the relevance of the past to the present and future in terms of the shifting attitudes to personal and collective experiences that have shaped dominant Western critical discourses about history, memory, and nostalgia. What theoretical frameworks lend themselves best to the study of historical complexities and emotional ambiguities that respond to them? How do we grasp the rhythms and forms of longing? How does nostalgia unfold with regard to space and time? Scholars working in the fields of literature, film, and visual arts are invited to submit proposals for papers that take issue with the epistemological, hermeneutic, ethical, and esthetic dimensions of the representational practices through which we revisit and revise the meaning of the past.