20-21/02/2017 - Workshop for Researchers on Living History in East-Central and Southeastern Europe (Germany)

German Historical Institute, Warsaw Action, experience and emotion are the focus when it comes to performativity. The planned workshop takes this as its starting point, inquiring into the specific forms of living history in this region. The aim of the workshop is to enable an intensive dialogue between researchers in various disciplines engaged in the description and analysis of living history in East-Central and Southeastern Europe.

Papers can deal with the following aspects and issues:
- Regional comparative perspectives: What forms and expressions does living history take in East-Central and Southeastern Europe? Are there differences between individual countries and historical regions in terms of popularity, functions, structures or historical contents?
- Protagonists and structures: Which protagonists, groups and institutions are involved? What motivates them? Are there established structures, and how is living history financed?
- Authentication: Which claims to and strategies of authentication are evident in individual forms of living history? What role does the “originality” of places and objects play here? To what extent do the participants reflect on and comment the structural character of their reenactments?
- Historical learning / understanding of history: How does the appropriation of history through emphasizing body-related reenactments differ in comparison to other, more cognitive processes of historical learning? Can living history be understood as a new form of communicating knowledge and participation?
- Empirics / methodology: How can the analytical and research methods from different fields (ethnology, anthropology, theater studies) regarding the performance of history be given a common denominator? To what extent can historical methods make a contribution to investigating living history?

Eligibility:
Researchers in various disciplines are invited to submit their papers.

Costs:
Travel costs as well as room and board of participants will be arranged and financed by the organizers. The workshop will take place in English.

How to apply?
Workshop participants will be selected based on their paper dealing with the abovementioned questions and with other aspects relevant to the topic of the workshop. Please send your paper of no more than 2,000 words as well as a short biography to Sabine Stach and Juliane Tomann by October 30, 2016. Please send your papers and biographies in English.

Deadline: 30/10/2016.

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