Call for Presentations:

"Curating Difficult Knowledge"

April 16-18, 2009

Concordia University, Montréal

How are public spaces used to shape memories of systematic mass violence?
What unique challenges arise in attempts to deploy narratives and
documents of collective suffering for public display? And what innovations
in exhibition, museology, and the activation of memorial sites might these
challenges inspire? Employing as a point of departure a notion of
"difficult knowledge" as that which challenges or disrupts anticipated
experience (and thus potentially induces transformations in understanding
or subjectivity), and considering "curation" in its deeper meaning of
"taking care of," this conference will provide a venue in which to grapple
with these questions as they arise in theory and practice.

The Centre for Ethnographic Research and Exhibition in the aftermath of
Violence (CEREV - http://cerev.concordia.ca/) at Concordia
University is
pleased to announce our first international conference, co-sponsored by
the Canada Research Chairs in Post-Conflict Studies and Latin American
History. Keynote speakers will include Prof. Roger Simon, Faculty Director
of the University of Toronto's Centre for Media and Culture in Education
and Director of the Testimony and Historical Memory Project at the Ontario
Institute for Studies in Education.

The specific aims of the conference are:
- To engage an emerging body of interdisciplinary scholarship and practice
around representing and conveying experiences and meanings of historical
suffering and injustice
- To envision and critique innovative attempts at public knowledge
production and transmission about post-conflict experience
- To reflect on the creation of public spaces for the discussion of past
violence as part of community and nation-state recognition of the past for
future generations

We especially encourage participation by scholars, curators, artists,
activists and other practitioners who are engaging with these questions in
the context of museums, memorials, and "sites of conscience." Our goal is
to bring together individuals who are engaged in experimental curatorial
work in the aftermath of violence with researchers undertaking
fine-grained reporting on and analysis of such work.

Instructions for submission:

We invite 250 word abstracts for 15- or 30-minute presentations that will
explore the conference themes outlined above. Since a central goal is to
foster conversation among participants, we encourage you to request the
shortest time-slot in which you can communicate your key points in your
chosen medium (i.e. a spoken conference paper should fit in 15 minutes).
We welcome the use of photographs, sound/video clips and other digital
media in presentations, and for this reason are offering the option of a
30-minute time slot. Please send abstracts, along with a current CV and a
100-word description of your current area of research/practice to:
cerevalcor.concordia.ca.

Deadline for abstract submission: August 31st, 2008.

Notification: by September 30th, 2008

Pending funding, we hope to be able to offer some travel subsidies to
participants coming from beyond North America. Please indicate in your
submission if such funding would be essential for your participation.

Erica Lehrer
Concordia University
1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
Montreal, QC
514-848-2424 ext. 5463
Email: cerevalcor.concordia.ca
Visit the website at http://cerev.concordia.ca