[Discussion] "Testimony and Witness: from the Local to the Transnational" February 13-15, 2006 Canberra, Australia

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

*Conference:
Call for Proposals
"Testimony and Witness: from the Local to the Transnational"
February 13-15, 2006

*Conference Date: February 13-15, 2006
Location: Humanities Research Centre, ANU, Canberra, Australia

This conference solicits new work in the field of testimony studies that
reflects trans-national and cross-cultural concerns relating to the
production, reception and performance of personal and collective
testimonies arising from historically specific injustice throughout the
20th century. We are interested in testimonies produced in the context
of, for example, World War I and II, the USSR, the Holocaust and forced
migrations, genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia, war rape, and
resulting projects of prosecution (eg. International Criminal Tribunals)
and national confrontation (eg. South African Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, the Bringing Them Home Inquiry in Australia), and in the
sites (eg. legal, digital, artistic, textual) of testimony production.
The conveners seek papers that attend to the local conditions of the
production and reception of testimony, as well as papers that explore
the wider national and trans-national circuits of their distribution and
consumption.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS:
We seek 250 word proposals for 25-minute papers that address the
following issues. Papers on other topics will also be considered.

    * What social, political, historical and material conditions have
      given rise to new forms of life-writing and testimony production?
    * How does narrative dissonance in the production of
      video-testimony, for example, complicate the idea of 'authorship'
      and subjectivity?
    * What challenges does testimony pose to historical interpretation
      of traumatic events?
    * What role do factors such as gender, race and ethnicity play in
      the production and reception of testimony, and in the shaping of
      cultural memory?
    * What strategies do new forms of testimony and life-writing use to
      negotiate issues of power, subjectivity and address?
    * What are the ethical demands posed by listening, writing, and
      reading testimonies as 'text'?
    * How do various methodological approaches result in different
      'readings' of testimony as text?
    * To what extent do testimonies 'undo' national histories and myths?
      To what extent do they create new myths?
    * Does the framing of testimony invite or encourage some kinds of
      readings at the expense of other kinds of readings?
    * What role does aesthetic or textual form play in shaping how
      audiences respond to testimonies of trauma?

In addition to panels on specific topics, we anticipate organising a
roundtable on approaches to reading testimonies. We invite proposals for
8-10 page papers that demonstrate, through a textual analysis of a
testimony, a particular methodological approach.

Proposals of 250 words should be emailed to both conference conveners at
the address below by *March 18th, 2005.
*

Rosanne Kennedy, School of Humanities, Australian National University,
Canberra, ACT, 0200
Email: rosanne.kennedy@anu.edu.au
Tel: +61-2-6125-5090; Fax: +61-2-6125-4490
and
Simone Gigliotti
History Programme
Victoria University of Wellington
PO Box 600
Wellington, New Zealand
Email: simone.gigliotti@vuw.ac.nz <mailto:simone.gigliotti@vuw.ac.nz>

Visit the website at
http://www.anu.edu.au/hrc/conferences/conferences_2006/Testimony_Witness.php