31 AUGUST – 1 SEPTEMBER 2017

The extent of retrospection in culture and politics is a topic oft-commented upon and lamented. Public engagements with history and heritage are frequently lumpenly categorised as ‘nostalgia’: sanitised, selective, reassuring. Yet this obscures the sheer diversity of militant pasts in the present, and of the contexts and processes that facilitate their re-manifestation.

This conference seeks to thrust treatments and legacies of the militant past into the academic spotlight. It will address issues such as when and where are different modes of representation and appropriation – such as the reproduction of imagery and motifs, re-narration, preservation of heritage, adaptation, re-enactment, anniversaries, remembrance and commemoration – employed? How are these shaped by the contexts in which they appear, whether in popular cultural forms, high politics, heritage sectors, social movements, educational institutions, biographies and autobiographies, or the internet? What purposes do they serve: nostalgia; entertainment; commodification; education; calls to action; warning or pacifying

gestures? How have these narratives, images and artefacts diffuse across time and space, and across formats and forums? How have their meanings contested, and by whom?

To see the conference programme, and to register, please follow this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/remobilising-militant-pasts-histories-of-protest-unrest-and-insurrection-in-politics-and-culture-tickets-36308575928. Deadline for registration is Thursday, 24 August.