Texts act like receptacles for an ever present remembered past, or what the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur calls “the present representation of an absent thing” (7).1 They might embody an efficient remedy to forgetting but could also become a vivid testimony for exorcised traumas, and “it is on this level and from this viewpoint that we can legitimately speak of wounded, even of sick memory” (Ricoeur, 69). According to Ricoeur, “the work of mourning is the cost of the work of remembering, but the work of remembering is the benefit of the work of mourning” (72). Thus remembering brings back a bitter past but might heal revived memories. As to history, it is always in tension between memory and forgetting; it relies on memory and prevents from forgetting. But it is also questionable because it depends on its source and its context and sways between hiding and revealing.
During this conference the debate will focus on Ricoeur’s phenomenology of memory, epistemology of history, and hermeneutics of forgetting. A special emphasis will be laid on the dissension between
individual and collective institutional memory.
Topics will pivot around the relationship between history, memory and social justice in different academic fields such as history, political science, sociology, cultural studies, human rights, media studies, gender studies, anthropology, linguistics, literature, psychology, and pedagogy. Materials covered are historical documents, novels, short stories, poems, plays, autobiographies, biographies, texts, paintings, films, museums, national archives, etc.
1 Ricoeur, Paul. Memory, History, Forgetting. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Organized by the Department of English at the Institut Supérieur des Langues Appliquées et d’Informatique de Béja (ISLAIB) in Tunisia in partnership with Birmingham-Southern College (BSC) in Alabama.
Venue: Higher Institute of Applied Languages and Computer Science of Beja, Tunisia
We welcome proposals focusing on, but not restricted to, the following topics:
Language and Linguistics
Text as memory
Socio/psychoanalysis of a text
Cognitive load theory,
Learning: memory& forgetting
Teaching history
Bilingual memory
Role of memory in second language and foreign language acquisition
Linguistic memory
Language and memory
Memory and engaged learning
Cultural Studies
The historical and the political
History of ideas
Tunisian history and tradition
Cultural studies and historical approaches
Individual and collective memory
Socio-cultural dimension of memory
History in the digital age
Digital memory and the archive
Collective memory and history
Cities and the architecture of memory
social justice and human rights
Literary Studies
Theories of memory
Intentional fallacy
Deconstruction
Historiography
Trauma and traumatic memory
Film and memory
Historical movies
Art and memory
Art history
Memory, history, forgetting in novels, plays, and poems
Literature for the reconstruction of history
Submission Details:
The reviewers will welcome abstracts of 300 words (maximum) and at least 3 key words for 15- minute presentations in English, French and Arabic, addressing aspects of the above-cited areas or other concerns pertinent to the topic of this conference.
All submitted proposals will be unanimously peer-reviewed by two external reviewers.
The abstract and the author’s personal information sheet must be submitted together in two separate files. The abstract file must contain no reference that may identify the author. The second file must include the author’s contact information, institutional affiliation, and a short biography (100 words max).
Once an abstract is accepted, the author is required to submit the full draft to the panel respondent no later than February 1st, 2018.
Send your abstracts to: islaibconf2018@yahoo.com
Important Dates
Submission of abstracts: November 30th, 2017
Notification of acceptance: December 15th, 2017
Submission of articles: February 1st, 2018
Conference Date: 5-7 April 2018
Deadline for proposals: 30 November 2017
Conference Fees:
Registration with accommodation (April 6th and 7th in Tabarka):
Tunisian Teachers or researchers, TND 150
Foreign Teachers orresearchers, 300 US Dollars
Registration ithout accommodation
Tunisian Teachers or researchers, TND 80
Foreign Teachers or researchers, 100 US Dollars