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Call for Papers History in the Making: Auditory, Visual and Textual Representations of Germany’s Past March 17-18, 2012 Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee Hosted by the German Graduate Student Association in conjunction with graduate students of the History Department Keynote speaker: George S. Williamson, Author of The Longing for Myth: Religion and Aesthetic Culture from Romanticism to Nietzsche (University of Chicago Press, 2004). Just as the past informs the present, the present is in turn the elusive ‘time-space’ where history is written. Cultural artifacts representing events, periods, or figures important to the history of a nation may contribute in many ways to a collective culture of memory and identity. These artifacts, or representations, may take the form of visual art, film, literature, poetry, oral history, or written history, among other media. History is a formative component of culture; at the same time, many see the very representation of history as problematic and consciously draw attention to its nature as a construction, shaking up the assurance that often accompanies canonizations of historical knowledge. While history determines the subject matter for many media, these media in turn shape our understanding of history. In the U.S., for example, filmmakers have frequently drawn on a particularly dark chapter in German history, namely the Nazi period, as if to create a sense of American national identity by contrast against the German. Film often rewrites history, from the extreme caricatures depicted in Spielberg’s Indiana Jones to the conscious awareness of history as a representation in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. Literature and art shape our perceptions of history in both problematic (Kleist’s Hermannsschlacht; Fallersleben’s Lied der Deutschen) and less problematic ways (Schiller’s Wallenstein). But in all cases, the relationship of aesthetic forms of representation to actual events remains a provocative and open question. From the Nibelungen saga to Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen; from the initial heyday of the historical novel during the Weimar Republic to the recent architectural transformation of parts of Berlin to resemble its pre-Weimar appearance, the means by which history is represented have been an issue at every point in Germany’s past. This interdisciplinary conference will seek to explore ways in which German history has been represented in former as well as more recent times. To what ends are representations of history made? What defines the transition from the present to the past? How do cultural artifacts serve as ways of defining Germany or German-ness? What is a historical event and how is that determined? What is the relationship of history as a crafted, man-made thing to history as nature? How does a particular ‘phase’ in history inscribe itself on our cultural productions? (e.g. Why are certain types of movies made or books written during a war, an economic boom, or a period of reconstruction?) How and to what ends do other nationalities write the history of Germany in varying ways? The German Graduate Student Association at Vanderbilt and the Graduate Students of the History Department would like to invite presentations, in English or German, of 20-25 minutes. Topics may include (but are not limited to): - Analysis of cultural artifacts representing historical events/periods/figures - Role of history in self-identification and/or in national identification - History as a medium of representation - ‘Classical’ historiography - Philosophy of history - Myth, history and national identity - Deconstruction of myth as an approach to history; question of where myth ends and history begins - Victor vs. oppressed: untold histories - The deed/event vs. history as a representation - The point at which the present becomes memory (past) - The concept of ‘Naturgeschichte’ (e.g. in Benjamin and Adorno) We welcome submissions from all disciplines. Please submit a 250-300 word abstract to vu.ggsa.grad.conference@gmail.com by December 16, 2011, along with the title of the paper, the presenter’s name and contact information, institutional and departmental affiliation and any technological requests. _________________________________________________________________________ H-GERMANISTIK Netzwerk für literaturwissenschaftlichen Wissenstransfer Humanities-Network for German Literature and Philology mail: redaktion@h-germanistik.de www: http://www.h-germanistik.de Beiträge / contributions: http://www.germanistik-im-netz.de/h-germanistik _________________________________________________________________________ GiNDok - Publikationsplattform für die Germanistik Veröffentlichen Sie Ihre Tagungsbeiträge online, unkompliziert und kostenfrei auf dem Dokumentenserver des Fachportals "Germanistik im Netz" (GiN) www: http://www.germanistik-im-netz.de/gindok/ mail: dokumentenserverFLL@ub.uni-frankfurt.de _________________________________________________________________________
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