Memory Studies Association, Grote Gracht 90-92, Maastricht (2026)

05/06/2026

📢 Upcoming dMSA Event

Vegetal Memory: A Comparative Study of Reading Circles Discussing Nature
📅 16 June 2026
🕓 4:00 PM

How can reading communities help us engage with environmental challenges and imagine more just futures?

This talk explores reading circles in Vienna, Madrid, and Galway that focus on environmental narratives, examining how they transform eco-anxiety and fragmented communication into spaces for dialogue, critical reflection, and hope.

Drawing on Umberto Eco's concept of "vegetal memory"—the memory preserved through books, libraries, and reading practices—the session reflects on how collective reading can foster environmental awareness, memory, and social responsibility.

🎙 Speaker:
Jesús Fidel Vega Arce

🎙 Moderation:
Mercedes de Luis Andrés

🔗 More information & registration: https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/event/vegetal-memory-a-comparative-study-of-reading-circles-discussing-nature/

02/06/2026

🗣 Call for Papers | Journal of Narrative Theory (JNT) Special Issue (Fall 2027) "Contemporary Narratives and Storytelling Cultures"

📍 Journal Published by: Eastern Michigan University, Department of English Language and Literature

📅 Fall 2027 Issue

📨 Submission deadline: 31 July 2026

Submissions are open for the special issue of JNT: Journal of Narrative Theory (indexed in SCOPUS and Web of Science), edited by Dr. Dhanesh Mankulam (Department of English and Cultural Studies, CHRIST Deemed to be University, Bengaluru, India).

The special issue aims to explore the changing nature of narratives and storytelling cultures in contemporary times, focusing on how digital platforms, algorithmic systems, and 'post-truth' environments alter the production, circulation, and reception of stories. The journal welcomes interdisciplinary, non-quantitative scholarship on narrative theory and practices.

📌 Contributions are welcomed on themes including (but not limited to):

・Narrative theory and contemporary storytelling practices

・Digital storytelling, platform cultures, and social media narratives

・Emerging narrative forms, algorithmic cultures, and machine mediation

・Political narratives, nationalism, ideology, and resistance

・Gender, caste, race, sexuality, and intersectional storytelling practices

・Memory, trauma, affect, and archival storytelling cultures

・Gaming narratives, virtual worlds, and immersive media cultures

・Transnational, intercultural, and diasporic storytelling cultures

Scholars working across narrative theory, literary studies, cinema, digital media, and cultural analysis are warmly encouraged to submit an abstract of 300–500 words and a brief bio-note of 100 words (both in PDF format).

🔗 For more information and full submission guidelines, please visit:https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1780071944765.pdf

⚠️ Disclaimer: This call for papers is not organized by the MSA.

28/05/2026

📢 MSA Early Career Work-in-Progress Series 2026

A supportive space for Early Career Academics in memory studies to share ongoing research, exchange ideas, and receive constructive peer feedback in a safe and collaborative environment.

🗓 Seminar 2
📅 8 June 2026
🕑 14:00–15:15 UTC

🎙 Presentations:

• Woohe Kim (Harvard University, US)
Remembering the Past, Building Just Futures: Temporal Praxis in Youth Activism on the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery Issue

• Jiaqi Liang (Maastricht University, The Netherlands)
Conditional Encounters with Difficult Pasts: Local Communities at Dark Heritage Sites in China

The series is organized by the MSA ECA Support Committee.

🔗 Registration: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdUuyZpfgGmERY1GPLBJRbzB3oFnrV58NysrBGDgombpW7YVA/viewform

27/05/2026

📢 Upcoming dMSA Event | Roundtable Discussion

Memory and Populism in Borderland Regions in Eastern and Central Europe
📅 4 June 2026
🕓 4:00 PM

This roundtable explores how memories of migration, displacement, violence, and shifting borders shape contemporary populist politics across Eastern and Central Europe.

Moving beyond elite-driven narratives, the discussion focuses on how local communities in historically contested borderlands remember the past and how these memory practices influence political belonging, nationalism, and democratic imaginaries.

Bringing together comparative perspectives from across the region, the session also reflects on populism as a vernacular and transnational phenomenon shaped by historical experience and collective memory.

🎙 Speakers:
Johana Wyss
Franz Graf
Diána Vonnák
Astrea Nikolovska
Ioana Brunet

🎙 Moderation:
Laura Mafizzoli

🤝 In cooperation with the MEMPOP Project

🔗 More information & registration: https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/event/memory-and-populism-in-borderland-regions-in-eastern-and-central-europe/

21/05/2026

🗣 Call for Papers | Conference "Gender and Violence in Historical Perspective: Social Practices and Discourses"

📍 Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
📅 3–5 December 2026
📨 Submission deadline: 15 June 2026

Submissions are open for the international conference "Gender and Violence in Historical Perspective: Social Practices and Discourses," organized by Jagiellonian University, UKEN Kraków, and the Polish Academy of Sciences. The event will take place in person at the Institute of History in Kraków.

The conference aims to create an academic forum for in-depth reflection on the multifaceted experiences of violence through the lens of gender categories, exploring evolving practices and understandings of aggression from the Middle Ages to the present day.

📌 Contributions are welcomed on themes including (but not limited to):
・Women as perpetrators: female criminality and hierarchies
・Sexual violence and domestic violence in historical perspective
・Discipline and exclusion as tools for maintaining social boundaries
・Identity and ritual: cultures of honor, militarism, and manhood/womanhood
・Intersectionality: the role of race, class, ethnicity, and age
・State-sponsored violence: biopolitics, eugenics, and reproductive weaponization
・Representations of violence in literature, media, and visual culture
・The role of experts: medical, psychiatric, and legal discourses

Scholars working at the intersection of gender studies, history, sociology, and cultural analysis are warmly encouraged to submit proposals for individual papers or full sessions (3–4 papers).

🔗 For more information and full submission guidelines, please visit: https://uamoderna.com/notice/conference-gender-and-violence-in-historical-perspective-social-practices-and-discourses/

⚠️ Disclaimer: This call for papers is not organized by the MSA.

19/05/2026

📢 Call for Papers | International Conference

Intimate Memory, Institutional Memory: Reframing Holocaust Commemorations
📍 Warsaw, Poland
📅 15–17 November 2026

The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute invites submissions for an international conference exploring the evolving relationships between individual, grassroots, and institutional forms of Holocaust remembrance.

Topics include:
• Family and post-memory practices
• Grassroots commemorative initiatives
• Museums, memorials, and state remembrance
• Digital transformations of memory and ethical challenges

We welcome contributions from scholars in memory studies, history, anthropology, Jewish studies, museum studies, digital humanities, and related fields.

📨 Abstract deadline: 31 May 2026
📍 Conference language: English

🔗 Full CFP & submission details:https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Intimate_Memory_Institutional_Memory_CfP.pdf

14/05/2026

📢 Call for Papers | International Conference

Food and Memory: Practices, Narratives, and Afterlives of the Past
📍 University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo, Italy
📅 17–18 September 2026

This interdisciplinary conference explores the intersections of food, memory, identity, trauma, migration, and cultural heritage. Bringing together scholars from memory studies, food studies, anthropology, literature, history, and related fields, the event invites reflections on how food practices and narratives shape individual and collective memories.

🎙 Keynote speakers:
Marianne Hirsch
Alessandro Portelli

📨 Submission deadline: 31 May 2026

🔗 Full CFP & details:https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/CFP_Food-and-Memory_UniSG.pdf

13/05/2026

Upcoming DMSA Event | Panel Discussion

Contradictions in Memory: South Africa and Germany in Parallel
📅 19 May 2026
🕓 4:00 PM

This panel brings together perspectives from South Africa and Germany to reflect on the contradictions and tensions within contemporary memory and heritage cultures.

Both countries are often recognized for their efforts to confront difficult pasts and build democratic cultures grounded in remembrance. Yet ongoing social and political developments reveal the limits and paradoxes of these memory practices — from neglected memorial sites and silenced histories in South Africa to the rise of right-wing movements in Germany despite strong institutional memory cultures.

The discussion will explore how memory, heritage, democracy, and belonging are being reshaped in these spaces of contradiction, while engaging broader debates on decolonizing memory and regional memory studies.

🎙 Speakers:
Nyasha Mboti
Prof. Heidi Grunebaum
Lauren van der Rede

🎙 Moderation:
Dr. Katrin Antweiler
Duane Jethro
Dr. Nicola Cloete

🔗 More information & registration: https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/event/contradictions-in-memory-south-africa-and-germany-in-parallel/

Join us for a transnational conversation on memory, democracy, and the contested politics of remembrance.

12/05/2026

🗣 Call for Papers | SISP 2026 Congress "Rethinking Memory Policies: Concepts, Challenges, and New Directions"

📍 University of Trento, Italy

📅 3–5 September 2026

📨 Submission window: 15 April – 29 May 2026

Submissions are open for the panel "Rethinking Memory Policies: Concepts, Challenges, and New Directions" (Section 6 – Public Policies and Public Administration), part of the SISP 2026 Congress "Multilateralism Contested," organised by the Italian Political Science Association (SISP) and to be held at the University of Trento.

The panel aims to critically engage with the evolving field of memory policies, addressing key conceptual, theoretical, and empirical challenges identified in recent scholarship from a distinctly policy-oriented perspective.

📌 Contributions are welcomed on themes including (but not limited to):

・Conceptual relationships between memory politics and public policy

・Policy processes in the institutionalisation of collective memory

・The role of policy entrepreneurs in shaping memory policies

・Multilevel governance of memory policies

・Memory policies in democratic and authoritarian contexts

・Comparative perspectives across regions

・The impact of conflicts on memory policy-making

Scholars working at the intersection of memory studies, public policy, and political science are warmly encouraged to apply.

🔗 for more information please visit: https://www.sisp.it/en/conference-2026/call-for-papers-2026-congress

⚠️ Disclaimer: This call for papers is not organized by the MSA.

08/05/2026

Upcoming DMSA Event | Roundtable Discussion

Exploring Contested Memories Through Linguistic Landscape Studies
📅 14 May 2026
🕓 4:00 PM

This roundtable explores how contested memories are negotiated in the linguistic landscapes of urban public spaces through a sociolinguistic perspective.

Focusing on contemporary Greece, the discussion examines how graffiti, banners, memorials, protest performances, and other grassroots interventions shape public memory, identity, and resistance. Through a series of case studies, speakers will address themes including migration, public mourning, political protest, and the struggle over visibility and erasure in shared spaces.

The session will reflect on how commemorative practices in the city become sites of social contestation, identity (re)negotiation, and demands for justice.

🎙 Speakers:
Costas Canakis
Daphne N. Christoulaki
Ntefne Dafni Santsak
Roula Kitsiou

🎙 Moderation:
Dr. Stella Bratimou

🔗 More information & registration: https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/event/exploring-contested-memories-through-linguistic-landscape-studies/

Join us for a conversation on memory, language, protest, and the politics of public space.

Memory Studies Association

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