Sounds of a Lifetime: Exploring Life Writing in Audio Media (29–30 January 2026, Vrije Universiteit Brussel) 

This conference aims to expand the boundaries of life writing studies by focusing on the often-overlooked domain of audio life narratives. As Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson highlight in the preface of Reading Autobiography, “[l]ife narrative studies has become an expansive, transnational, multimedia field” (xi), going far beyond the written word. In the latest edition of this seminal work, they touch upon the concept of mediated voice and the aural qualities of social media messages, indicating the varied manifestations of auto/biographical acts (129).  

Building on the exciting new work being done in studies of life writing, auto/biography, literary studies, sound studies, and media studies, this conference seeks to explore the multifaceted realm of sonic life narratives, with a particular emphasis on their literary and artistic features, as well as listeners’ individual and collective experiences. More specifically, it seeks to examine how audio life writing represents, mediates, and (re)constitutes lives; what aesthetic strategies are used and what effects they generate; how audio life narratives are received and remediated; as well as their inherent politics. 

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:  

• Theoretical/methodological reflections on audio life writing  
• Audio life writing in specific genres and media (radio drama, podcasts, rap and spoken word poetry, …) 
• Voice, sound and music in audio life writing  
• Audio life writing and cultural memory 
• Audio life writing and identity (individual and collective) 
• Audio life writing and politics 
• Audio life writing and intermediality 
• Adaptations of life stories to audio media 
• Audio archives and life narratives  
• Fact and fiction in audio life writing  
• Listening to audio life writing  
• … 

The conference will be held in English, but research on non-Anglophone contexts is strongly encouraged. Please note that we are aiming for an in-person conference.  

The following keynote speakers have confirmed: Julia Lajta-Novak (University of Vienna), Jarmila Mildorf (University of Paderborn), Matthew Rubery (Queen Mary University of London) 

Please submit your abstract (250–300 words) as a PDF or Word document, including your name, affiliation, and contact details, along with a brief biography (100 words) via email to soundsofalifetime@vub.be by February 15, 2025. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by March 20, 2025. Selected papers will be considered for publication in a special issue of an international peer- reviewed journal or an edited volume.  

Please follow updates on our conference website: https://events.vub.be/sounds-of-a-lifetime-exploring-life-writing-in-audio-media 

The one-day conference will be held on 12 June 2025, at University of Vienna. The conference will be organised jointly by the Vienna Center for the History of Collecting (Austria) and Moravian Library in Brno (Czech Republic) and will be accompanied by a poster exhibition on Bernard Paul Moll composite atlas preserved at Moravian Library which originated in Vienna in the 18th century.

We welcome papers on history of map collecting and composite atlases, 17th-20th centuries. Paper´s title, abstract of 5-8 senteces and short CV in English are welcome by 17 March 2025. The acceptance notification is scheduled on 31 March 2025. There will be 20 minutes space for presentations. The conference language will be English.

Contact Information

Eva Chodejovska, Moravian Library in Brno (Czech Republic)

Silvia Tammaro, University of Vienna (Austria)

Contact Email

chodejovska@mzk.cz

EurAsian Materials in Central European Collections (Innsbruck, 5 and 6 June 2025). 

Traditional categories essential to cataloguing and describing objects (such as date, maker, and geographic origin) are opposed to the layered processes of creation, circulation, and reinterpretation that characterize much EurAsian material culture in central European collections. Museum labels pinpoint where and when objects were “made.” A methodology grounded in material histories shifts the emphasis to multiple sites of creation and adaptive reuse. These questions open new spatial and temporal contexts for objects, placing them more firmly in local and global circuits. The goal of this workshop is to bring these material entanglements to the surface and develop concrete measures that make them more visible to both scholars and the general public. To do so, the workshop brings together a group of international experts to present cutting edge research and explore new avenues for scholarship, teaching, and outreach that place Eurasian materials at the center of thinking about central European collections. 

The focus will be on the use and adaptation of raw materials (such as metals, minerals, bones, nutshells) to explore deep object biographies. The workshop will look closely at well-known EurAsian resources like lapis lazuli (Lake Baika and in the Kokcha River valley), ruby (Central and Southeast Asia), nephrite (most famously from Hotan), diamonds (Indian subcontinent), citrine (Ural Mountains), and coconut (Indo-Pacific). Workshop participants will also focus on less-studied materials such as chalcedony, aurochs’ horn, jasper, agate, rock crystal, amethyst, sardonyx, diamonds, heliotrope, and garnet. 

The workshop will include academic papers as well as a tour of the collections at Schloss Ambras, and a brainstorming session on outreach (focused on floating ideas for revising labels, creating digital tours for existing platforms, educational programming, ideas for the development of educational materials to be sold at gift shops). The workshop is organized and funded by the FWF Cluster of Excellence in EurAsian Transformations, and we have funding to cover the cost of travel and accommodations for a limited group of participants.

We invite proposals for traditional research papers (20 minutes) or object-focused discussions (10-15 minutes). Please send a title and abstract of no more than 300 words alongside a CV to radwayr@ceu.edu by February 15, 2025.

Contact Email

radwayr@ceu.edu

The Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture is pleased to share the Call for Papers for the 11th Annual Conference ‘A Polyphony of Emotions: Thinking Affect in Heritage, Memory and Material Culture.’ This conference occurs at the University of Amsterdam on 2, 3 and 4 July 2025. 

Cultural heritage shapes individual and collective emotions, and vice versa. The reciprocal relationship between heritage and emotions is demonstrated by how, in recent years, political, activist and academic debates have reconsidered the importance of affect. No longer relegated merely to the individual and psychological dimension, these debates have come to frame emotions as constituent elements of social experience. Suffice it to consider the use of social fear of a global nuclear war; the imperialist nostalgia of Western countries, which see nationalism and/or populism as the solution to counter globalisation; the emotional polarization with the ongoing wars in Palestine and Ukraine; the resurgence of radical ethno-traditionalist rhetoric all around the world, driven by frustration with open-market globalism, and the manipulation of foreign-state propaganda aimed at exploiting emotions to politically target local populations; the pride or vindictive anger of activists who deface museums, works of art and monuments; heightened emotions in the context of social revolutions and political revolts and (neo)colonial struggle, the emotions connected to the memory and impact of the Pan-Atlantic slave trade and all forms of enslavement of people; or the solastalgia and anxiety caused by the ever-faster crisis of climate change.

These few examples indicate the extent to which emotions and thinking affect can become performative forces, driving actions and therefore building, preserving, destroying heritage and memory. Understanding the role of emotions in heritage sites, memory acts and material culture practices, policies and politics, therefore, is essential to grasp how the past is experienced, contested, romanticized, rejected or silenced across various local, national and transnational levels. In response to the need to better understand these processes, the 11th annual conference of the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM) will be dedicated to the polyphonies of emotions and thinking affect in heritage, memory and material culture studies. By crossing academic, artistic and professional boundaries, the aim of the conference is to investigate how the past can be constituted as a battleground where emotions are designed, weaponized and manipulated to advance political and ideological agendas, or to shape the mobilization of communities. This conference aims to explore the dynamic relationship between heritage and collective emotions, focusing on how emotions affect varied global heritage and memory practices, narratives and policies, and, vice versa, how heritage can serve as a tool for emotional mobilization, resilience and reconciliation.

We welcome abstracts and proposals for papers, panels and roundtables emanating from diverse historical and geographical contexts that engage with (but are not restricted to) the following themes:

• Theories of emotions and heritage: what theoretical perspectives can illuminate the relationship between heritage, emotion, and conflict, and how can these frameworks deepen our understanding of the emotional dimensions of heritage?
• Emotions and the politics of heritage and social justice: how do emotions contribute to preserving or challenging dominant and hegemonic heritage narratives? What role do emotions play in (re)shaping research positionalities, resisting cultural and political polarisation or facing systemic oppression and injustice?
• Emotions and heritage construction: how are emotional narratives intentionally constructed in heritage sites, museums, works of literature, films, and commemorations, with the aim of influencing collective memory and identity?
• Emotion and collective memory: how do emotional frameworks shape collective memory and the understanding of the past?
• The weaponization of emotions in conflict: how are emotions strategically manipulated to justify the destruction of cultural heritage or to mobilize communities to defend it?
• Heritage and collective solidarity: in times of crisis, how do communities utilize heritage to foster emotional resilience, solidarity, and a sense of shared purpose?
• Methodologies for studying emotions and heritage: what innovative qualitative and quantitative research methods are most effective for analyzing the role of emotion in heritage studies?

Applications

• A short abstract (max. 250 words)
• A brief academic biography (including name, affiliation, research interests; max 100 words)

Applications for panels and roundtables

• A short rationale of the aim of the panel (max. 250 words)
• A short abstract of each paper to be presented (max. 250 words)
• A brief academic biography of all presenters (including name, affiliation, research interests; max 100 words)

Proposals can be submitted by 15 March 2025 to ahmannualconference@gmail.com.

About the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM)

The AHM fosters dynamic, interdisciplinary and transnational research on heritage and memory, organizes PhD training, seminars, reading groups, workshops, public debates and international conferences, and stimulates schola. The school brings together researchers working in diverse areas and fields, interconnecting heritage and memory studies, cultural studies, museum studies, archaeology, material culture, art history, media, conservation and restoration, archival studies, digital humanities, postcolonial and performative studies, religious studies, music and theatre studies, conflict and identity studies, Slavonic languages and cultures, Holocaust and genocide studies, European memory studies, Middle Eastern studies, and cultural, public and oral history. For more information about AHM please visit the website: https://ahm.uva.nl/ 

Contact Information

Josien Franken, Conference Assistant. 

Contact Email

ahmannualconference@gmail.com

URL

https://ahm.uva.nl/shared/subsites/amsterdam-institute-for-humanities-research/…