Voices at the Margins? is Summer workshop convened by TECHNE PhD researchers: Syma Tariq (CRiSAP); Vanessa Tautter, Martha Beard, Áine McKenny (University of Brighton); and Laney Lenox (Ulster University). This open call invites applications from PhD researchers from all disciplines working with memories, voices and histories.
Deadline: 19 April 2021
Event: 20 – 24 September 2021 at the University of Brighton
A burgeoning, cross-disciplinary “memory boom” has highlighted the significance of memories of the past for the present and future. In this context, this interdisciplinary, workshop-based summer school explores the timely, yet under-addressed themes of memories and histories ‘at the margins’ and specifically focuses on the theoretical and methodological challenges associated with research that engages with such ‘marginal’ voices.
‘At the margins’ is a phrase we have adopted here to refer to the multifarious forms of experiences and spaces that have traditionally remained at the periphery of public and scholarly attention. Such ‘margins’ can be the result of power dynamics that under-recognise, marginalise, exclude, silence and/or oppress specific groups or members of society. Additionally, voices, memories and histories can also be located at the peripheries of societal discourses as they are or have become unacceptable in respective dominant political and cultural contexts that foster the circulation of some ideas and stories over others. Yet, while some agents are forced to the ‘margins’, others choose to locate or remain there. With this summer school we want to challenge the problematic and universalist assumptions of ‘giving’ voice to the ‘unheard’ or ‘voiceless,’ by raising questions about who ‘they’ are, who ‘hears’ and does not ‘hear’ them, and why. In this context, we invite participants to reflect on notions of ‘marginality’ in their own work and how this affects the methodologies and theories they develop in their own study of cultural memory.
In this sense, the workshops that make up this summer school offer PhD researchers space to critically engage with the specific theoretical and methodological challenges in their research in a constructive and supportive environment. The workshops will offer rich opportunities for in-depth discussions of participants’ own research, as well as for an exploration of new state-of-the-art theoretical and methodological approaches in the field, based on participants’ own needs and interests.
Please see the full details on the Voices at the Margins? website
Contact the organizers: voicesatmargins@gmail.com
Image credit: Petra Kostevc
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Voices at the Margins? Cultural Memory Theory and Methodological Summer School. 20-24 September 2021. Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories, University of Brighton