Memory - contestation - identity: European politics of remembrance, 19th International Conference of Europeanists, Boston, 22-24 March 2012‏

19th International Conference of Europeanists
Boston, Massachusetts • March 22-24, 2012
Organized by the Council for European Studies

Even if research on questions of memory and identity have permeated
empirical political science in the past few years, there is still a lack
of comprehensive studies dealing with both transnational pan-European
politics of remembrance and the question if and how it is connected to
an unfolding European public sphere.

For the next Council for European Studies Conference taking place from
22-24 March 2012 in Boston, we are looking for research projects which
examine exactly this nexus between European politics of remembrance,
European identity and an emerging European public sphere from different
angles. All scholars dealing with politics of remembrance on the
European level are invited to submit a proposal. Papers could
investigate for example the way the EU has dealt publicly with the
memory of WWII, discuss the emergence of a European public sphere
vis-à-vis the remembrance of oppression and dictatorship, map European
efforts to implement a standardised negative founding myth on the basis
of the Holocaust or examine the continuous conflict between the memory
of Stalinism and Nazism/Fascism on the European level (to give just a
few examples).

The panel thus seeks to investigate an area that so far has been
under-researched. While the amount of studies exploring politics of
memory on the national level has seen an enormous increase in the past
years, there is little evidence of research dealing with issues and
actors on the European level. Scholars concentrating particularly on the
manifold relations between pan-European politics of remembrance,
questions of identity and (a) European public sphere(s) are therefore
particularly encouraged to apply.

Paper proposals (250 words abstracts) should be sent to
alinesierp@gmail.com by September 17, 2011.
We are planning to include suitable contributions in an edited volume
that are published as part of the ECPR - Studies in European Political
Science series.