9 January 2025 - 9 January 2025
9:00AM - 5:00PM
Seminar Room, Institute of Advanced Study, Cosin's Hall, Palace Gree
Free
The ‘Pasts in the Present’ project revolves around two fundamental questions: what is the cultural and social impact of former eras in the 21st century, and how does this interact with academic discourses? These questions have become increasingly important in the 21st century as ideologies of nation, often connected to racism and intolerance, have weaponised ideas about the past for contemporary political ends--and implicated academic disciplines in doing so.
Image courtesy of iStock
Discovering the contemporary (ab)use of the past is thus vital for fields that deal directly with historical studies; however, it may also be a broader issue that affects other research areas with as-yet unknown consequences.
As a result, one of the major aims of this project is to examine perceptions of the historical past from the perspective of a broad range of academic disciplines beyond the explicitly historical fields of History, Literature, and Archaeology. The objective is to compare the way in which disciplines outside of the Arts and Humanities conceive of the past and how they construct it within the present.
This exploratory workshop on January 9th brings together scholars from academic fields across the University. Each participant is asked to make a very informal presentation (around 3 slides, 5-7 minutes) on how their discipline conceptualises the past and its impact on the present. The audience will be broadly interdisciplinary, and the presentations will be followed by an afternoon of comparative discussion.
Participants from any department or field are invited. Please fill out this short form before 13th December if you would like to attend: https://forms.office.com/e/rr6A51BQqQ
You can read more about the project here
Please contact Laura Campbell (l.j.campbell@durham.ac.uk) for further information.
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