vifanord Congress Calendar

IASS 2021: Memory Culture in Scandinavian Studies

Location:🇱🇹 Vilnius, Lithuania
Organizer:International Association for Scandinavian Studies, Centre for Scandinavian Studies, Vilnius University
Website:http://www.iass2020.flf.vu.lt/
First day:2021-08-03
Last day:2021-08-06
Categories:📜 History / Archeology 📚 Literary Studies 💬 Linguistics 📰 Politics / Society 🎭 Cultural History
Description:

The idea of the conference − memory culture − sprang naturally from its cultural topography. Vilnius, a “polycultural and polychronic text” (to quote the poet Tomas Venclova), with its dramatic, multi-ethnic and multilingual history, is pregnant with memories − complementary and conflicting, concealed and forgotten, constructed and de-constructable.

The conference will be hosted by Vilnius University, which is counted among the oldest in the region, and the location of the humanities on its oldest campus, in the heart of Vilnius Old town, makes it a very special conference venue.

The theme, time and location of the conference thus invite contributions that explore the intersections of history and culture. However, the title Memory Culture in Scandinavian studies covers a much broader field than that. Mnemosine is the mother of all the muses, and Munin is Hugin’s inseparable companion: any study of culture is concerned with remembering in one way or another.

Scholars of Scandinavian Studies, engaging with topics such as cultural memory, collective memory, visual memory, (re)imagined memory, post memory, memory and place, the memory of things, ecological memory, digital memory, intertextual and intermedial memory; those who work with theoretical approaches such as cognitive studies, trauma studies, genre studies, post-colonial and gender studies, Ecocriticism and posthuman studies; those who study early texts and deal with the problems of Old Norse literature or those who work with Scandinavian literary history, canon formation, the history of film and other media, with individual writers or the evolution of ideas, styles or language use, can all find their place in the agenda of the conference. And it still leaves space for more.