Tag: international

CFP: Travelling Cultural Heritage. Circulation and Digital Afterlives

Romania

Travelling Cultural Heritage

Circulation and Digital Afterlives

Call for Papers

Cultural Heritage Lab International Conference

4th edition

Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania

December 10-11, 2026

Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, as part of the FORTHEM Alliance, invites scholars, researchers, and practitioners to submit proposals for the 4th edition of the Cultural Heritage Lab International Conference, dedicated to exploring cultural heritage as a dynamic process of circulation across cultural, geographical, institutional, and historical boundaries.

The 2026 edition focuses on Travelling Cultural Heritage (TCH): an approach that understands heritage not as a fixed repository, but as a process through which cultural forms, practices, ideas, and meanings move, encounter different contexts, and are transformed along the way. Drawing on Edward Said’s concept of “travelling theory”, Mieke Bal’s “travelling concepts”, and scholarship on cultural circulation, TCH shifts attention from mobile objects to the processes through which heritage is transmitted, adapted, appropriated, reinterpreted, and re-signified.

Heritage travels through migration, exchange, conquest, education, trade, tourism, collecting, translation, transmedial transfer, and institutional networks. Migrants adapt cultural practices acquired abroad to their home contexts; travelling elites import fashions, recipes, and other cultural products; artistic styles acquire regional forms as they circulate; and networks of institutions, scholars, dealers, and historical circumstances determine how artefacts enter major collections. Such movements involve adaptation and transformation, but also appropriation, exclusion, and unequal centre–periphery relations.

Circulation may allow heritage to acquire new meanings, but it may also entail loss. The large-scale purchase, digitisation, and destruction of books for AI training suggests a future in which physical heritage disappears while its digital avatars survive—an extreme form of travel across media and material states, combining virtual preservation with material destruction. More optimistically, AI, data science, interoperable infrastructures, and spatial visualisation can trace cultural circulation, compare contexts, and recover seemingly lost artefacts, including previously unreadable ancient manuscripts.

We welcome contributions that engage with Travelling Cultural Heritage from disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, including cultural and heritage studies, anthropology, archaeology, sociology, history, linguistics and literary studies, political science, art history, architecture, digital humanities, economics, media studies, religious studies, drama, film, the performing arts, museum studies, memory studies, and food studies.

Contributors are invited to submit abstracts on, but not limited to, the following themes:

  • Travelling Cultural Heritage: theories, concepts, and methodologies;
  • Cultural circulation, transmission, adaptation, and re-signification;
  • Heritage: migration, displacement, and diaspora;
  • Museums, collections, objects, routes, networks, intermediaries, and infrastructures of cultural circulation;
  • The movement of architectural forms, artistic practices, rituals, and cultural traditions;
  • Colonial, postcolonial, and decolonial circulations of cultural heritage;
  • Digital heritage, digital infrastructures, AI, platforms and computational approaches to cultural circulation;
  • Heritage in translation: what changes when cultural forms travel between languages and the production of new heritage meanings
  • Local content, foreign forms: adaptation and naturalisation across literatures;
  • World Cultural Heritage: comparative approaches to heritage beyond national frameworks;
  • Archaeological evidence for mobility, exchange, and cultural contacts;
  • Memory and heritage: overlappings and differences;
  • Case studies of cultural forms, practices, objects, ideas, or meanings that have travelled across contexts.

Submission Guidelines

Please submit an abstract of 250–300 words, along with a short biographical note (max. 100 words), to Ovio Olaru (ovio.olaru@ulbsibiu.ro) and Daniela Stanciu-Păscărița (daniela.stanciu@ulbsibiu.ro) by November 1, 2026.

The organisers’ decision regarding submissions will be communicated by November 15.

For effectiveness, please include “Cultural Heritage Lab conference submission” in the subject line of your email.

The conference will be held in English, German, and French, and will take place exclusively on-site.

We look forward to your contributions!

Kind regards,

The organisers

Contact Information

Junior Lecturer Ovio Olaru // ovio.olaru@ulbsibiu.ro

Junior Lecturer Daniela Stanciu // daniela.stanciu@ulbsibiu.ro

Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu

Contact Email

ovio.olaru@ulbsibiu.ro

URL: https://grants.ulbsibiu.ro/elabchrom/cultural-heritage-lab/

CFP: International symposium “Palestinian Heritage in Peril: Collection, Preservation, Reconstruction”

Call for papers – International symposium “Palestinian Heritage in Peril: Collection, Preservation, Reconstruction”

May 18-19, 2027, Auditorium of the Languages ​​and Civilizations Center, BULAC, 65 rue des Grands Moulins, Paris. 

Organizing Committee: Raphaël Banc-Lévêque, Véronique Bontemps, Fadime Deli, Sébastien Haule, Flore Heinrich, Marion Lauréat Macé, Norig Neveu, Syrine Saltaji, Fabrice Virgili.

Download the appeal: in French , in English and in Arabic

Argument

The ongoing destruction inflicted on the Gaza Strip for over two years has affected most vital infrastructure, professional sectors, and also heritage and cultural sites. UNESCO has documented the destruction of more than one hundred heritage, archaeological, and cultural sites, which, like schools and hospitals, are targeted by the Israeli army. It is in this context that the Gaza History project (https://gazahistoire.hypotheses.org/) has undertaken the mission of documenting the history, destruction, and reconstruction of these heritage sites. This conference extends and presents the work of this collective over the past two years.

This operation of cultural destruction is not a recent phenomenon, and the year 2023 has only served to brutally accelerate long-standing practices. The idea of ​​erasing or preventing cultural expression and heritage preservation in Gaza and, more generally, in Palestine, is part of Israeli policies aimed at rendering invisible, reappropriating, or even destroying Palestinian cultural heritage.

The issue of preserving Palestinian heritage is intrinsically linked to the history of Palestinians, whether they live in the territory of Mandatory Palestine or in exile, as well as to the history of colonization. The control of certain historical sites and biblical archaeology, in particular, lies at the heart of the strategy for constructing an Israeli national narrative. Thus, Palestinian history is punctuated with examples that indicate the centrality of heritage issues: abandoned or destroyed villages from the Nakba to the present day; Confiscated, vanished, or destroyed archives and libraries, but also, more traditionally, the gradual disappearance of certain artistic practices under the influence of globalization—such as the icon tradition in the face of the patrimonialization, or even folklorization, of certain material cultures like embroidery. The Palestinian experience of heritage thus sheds light, in many respects, on the contemporary challenges of preserving and restoring tangible and intangible culture. Examples include the initiatives of Widad Kawar (Jordan) for the preservation of Palestinian material culture, and those of Anne-Marie Schayegh (Lebanon) in the field of Palestinian oral history. Similarly, the preservation of libraries and written, visual, and sound archives—particularly private ones—quintessentially occupied a central place within Palestinian institutions, such as the Institute for Palestine Studies, from a very early stage.Through private funding, or more recently thanks to digitization projects led by the Museum of the Palestinian People, and despite the long absence of an official archival policy, Palestinian heritage has been preserved. Architects also play a central role in safeguarding built heritage, as exemplified by initiatives led by the Riwaq Centre for Architectural Conservation. 

Palestine has thus long been a particularly complex and instructive case study for understanding the challenges of heritage preservation in the context of war and colonialism. However, the last two years seem to have been marked by an acceleration of the processes of eradicating Palestinian heritage; it is important to place these processes within a broader historical context in order to better understand the contemporary heritage crisis and the mobilizations it has generated. This international conference aims to examine how heritage is currently threatened and rendered invisible in Palestine (in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the current Israeli territory) when it is not simply destroyed. This project will document acts of obstruction, but also resistance and the processes of safeguarding and appropriating a multifaceted heritage in the Palestinian territories. International and Palestinian cultural and economic actors are involved, as well as local populations striving to remain in these areas. A comparative dimension will be developed with other cultural areas whose heritage is threatened or even lost, in order to grasp the specificities of the Palestinian context.

Theme 1. Written Heritage: Archives, Records of Knowledge, and Representations.

From the late 19th century onward, Palestine and its main cities played a major role in the Nahda movement.The Arab intellectual renaissance, but also the renewal of biblical studies, were all significant aspects of Palestine’s development. Palestine already possessed a dense and rich written heritage, linked in particular to the presence of the holy sites of Jerusalem, Hebron, and Safed, and to the missionary presence. This resulted in a considerable body of documentary and archival material produced by government agencies, intellectuals, missionaries, photographers, religious institutions, associations, political parties, as well as tourist agencies, industries, and manufacturers. A significant portion of these documentary resources has now been destroyed or confiscated for the benefit of Israeli archival institutions or private collectors, or dispersed through successive migrations and exiles. Several archival collections and preservation initiatives nevertheless remain—such as the archives of the Dome of the Rock and those of Abu Dis, among others. These initiatives sometimes stem from folklorists, like the collection of amulets gathered by Tawfiq Canaan and donated to the Birzeit University Museum. Similarly, Palestinian intellectual vitality has long been manifested by the existence of numerous private libraries, boasting a wealth of documentary resources. These collections, however, face several major challenges: the absence or weakness of structured archival policies; the fragility of certain holdings, particularly rare documents from the medieval or Ottoman periods; and insufficient resources dedicated to cataloging, preservation, and promotion. Furthermore, these archives are constantly embroiled in conflicts of legitimacy between Israelis and Palestinians, concerning both the ownership of the documents and, implicitly, the historical narratives they allow us to establish or reconstruct. The war in Gaza has also revealed on a large scale the mechanisms of a deliberate strategy of systematic destruction of documentary and archival holdings—libraries, archives, and other heritage collections.

Contributions under this first theme will revisit both the strategies for preserving and reappropriating this heritage, paying particular attention to the role of digital technology in recent years. What are the effects of this dematerialization on the production of knowledge about Palestine? Can the production of forgeries reshape narratives about the region’s history when generative AI enables the creation of fake archives? How can we continue to produce knowledge about territories marked by the destruction or appropriation of archives and documentation? What mobilizations and modes of action are being deployed to safeguard this written heritage, and who are the key players? Finally, what legal questions do these preservation efforts raise? Contributions offering a perspective on other regions or spaces facing targeted and systematic destruction of their written heritage, and highlighting the ways in which these challenges are addressed in context, will be especially welcome.

Axis 2. Built Heritage.

Built heritage in Palestine is, par excellence, an area of ​​heritage tensions. The diplomatic crisis that followed UNESCO’s inscription of the Old City of Hebron, including the Tomb of the Patriarchs, on the World Heritage List is a prime example. The approach to this heritage is characterized by the diversity of issues it raises.

First and foremost is the question of the destruction of, or the impossibility of accessing, built heritage, whether rural or urban, particularly that of villages abandoned during the Nakba. Added to this is another form of disappearance, often linked to the limited heritage value placed on certain architectural forms, especially those from the Mamluk, Ottoman, or Mandate periods. Their preservation is now a central concern for some Palestinian architects, who are committed to preserving both the heritage and the know-how stemming from different periods of Palestinian history. For example, the Riwaq collective of architects is working on inventorying and documenting built heritage, particularly that inherited from the Ottoman era. The question of recognition, as well as renovation and reconstruction techniques, also arises for a heritage that is often contested and frequently threatened by processes of appropriation or expropriation. This issue particularly concerns holy sites and, more broadly, all sites with a monumental religious topography.

The degradation and eradication of Gaza’s heritage raise several sets of questions. How can we document the destruction and what has disappeared? How has exponential urban development allowed for the preservation of diverse architectural forms, and thus, how can we study urban history and geography in the absence of any trace? To assess and analyze these issues, it is essential to consider the importance and preservation of iconographic sources (buildings, plans, maps), which allow us to document spaces, territories, and places that have now completely vanished.

The contributions of this panel will thus raise the question of the role of archaeologists, experts, and architects in documenting and preserving architectural forms that have now disappeared or, at the very least, are seriously threatened. More broadly, the issue of built heritage relates to the attention it receives and the prioritization of public policies, whether those of the Palestinian Authority, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (MoTA), or other bodies. The challenges related to built heritage in Palestine are also deeply marked by the question of ownership, which places archives at the heart of preservation strategies. In this context, it will be necessary to revisit, over the long term, the attention given to Palestinian built heritage according to the actors and periods involved: which built heritage generates interest, and what are the strategies for its enhancement, whether for tourism or other purposes? How can the organization of exhibitions abroad contribute to the preservation of Palestinian heritage? Finally, this heritage is intrinsically linked, particularly in times of war, to the issue of smuggling and the economics of archaeological objects and artifacts. In a context of blockade , heritage objects from Gaza circulate via clandestine or digital networks . The revenues, often captured by intermediaries , stem from an economy of scarcity , where the value of goods is amplified by their conflictual origin. This dynamic reveals, as in 1939-1945, the tensions between the preservation and monetization of heritage in times of crisis. 
How can we understand and interpret the specific nature of these issues in light of the destruction caused by contemporary conflicts, by placing them within a broader historical perspective, across different periods, particularly in light of the documented phenomena of mass production and technological developments, especially in the European contexts of the two World Wars? 

Theme 3. Intangible Heritage

A third aspect of heritage practices concerns intangible heritage and lived experiences. Daily, artisanal, and artistic practices (whether musical production, embroidery, visual arts, theater, dance, etc.), as well as traditional crafts, are profoundly affected by the disruption of ecosystems linked to the genocidal acceleration of colonization in Palestine. Israeli attacks on intangible heritage, in its artisanal, cultural, popular, and artistic dimensions, are not new. The idea of ​​eradicating culture has been central to Israeli colonial policy since the destruction of 1948 in Mandatory Palestine. The years of military occupation from 1967 to the 1990s saw Israel implement a policy aimed at preventing any form of Palestinian cultural expression, through the closure of art galleries, cinemas, and theaters, and the banning of festivals. The Oslo process and then the Second Intifada after 2000 imposed new restrictions on movement and the imposition of permits hindering cultural mobility. But the last two years represent a further step in this ongoing process, exemplified in Gaza where attacks against cultural heritage have also targeted cultural figures and actors such as journalists and artists, as well as representatives of other professional groups (journalists, doctors, and academics).

Contributions may explore the implications of targeting this heritage in Palestine or elsewhere, given its multifaceted nature. For example, some intangible heritage practices also intersect with economic practices, such as olive harvesting or soap production, particularly in Nablus. These practices, like all intangible heritage, are severely threatened by the scale of past and ongoing environmental destruction and soil pollution, especially in Wadi Gaza. What aspects of Palestinian life, at the intersection of production, the affirmation of identity and collective identity, and artistic expression, are targeted by this focus on intangible heritage? Furthermore, artists, intellectuals, and ordinary people alike continue to transmit and create despite the destruction, constituting a form of living resistance, whether through personal or collective forms of creation: sketchbooks, music workshops, and so on. Contributions may thus analyze how artists and cultural practitioners mobilize in the face of destruction, how practices and imaginaries are reconfigured to resist this environment and constitute genuine practices and repertoires of survival. Who are the actors in these practices aimed at reviving memorial practices, and what is the role of intergenerational transmission? More generally, how do cultural and artistic practices allow us to preserve hope and transmission? Particular attention may be paid to the study of the methods of preserving and transmitting intangible cultural practices by displaced persons, refugees, and members of the Palestinian diaspora , by examining the mechanisms of resilience, adaptation, or disappearance of these practices in situations of exile.

Theme 4: Reconstructing Lost Heritage

More generally, a final theme may be devoted to the question of the reconstruction or reconstitution of destroyed or lost heritage. Presentations may, through discourse analysis, examine the competing narratives surrounding reconstruction projects. This includes, in particular, Donald Trump’s pronouncements regarding the potential deployment of a “Riviera-style” project on the site of present-day Gaza City. Contributions may also revisit the international legal response in order to examine the authority of the actors involved in these reparation and reconstruction processes. The aim will be to analyze these projects not only in their competitive dimension, but also in terms of what they reveal about the political and social projections envisioned for the future of these territories. Proposals may also examine This area of ​​research will examine international legal responses (conventions, resolutions, and sanctioning mechanisms) and the role, legitimacy, and effectiveness of the actors involved in reparation and reconstruction efforts.

It will also explore the economic challenges related to heritage restoration and the construction sector, examining the utopian or dystopian visions associated with these reconstruction projects and aspirations, whether for built heritage or tangible heritage more generally. For example, one could mention the initiatives already underway to reconstruct some of the manuscripts from the al-‘Umari Mosque collection in Gaza. It will therefore be necessary to revisit the projects formulated, the heritage doctrines, and the heritage and architectural techniques, and more broadly, the material resources considered for implementing these reconstruction or reconstitution processes. Particular attention may also be paid to virtual or digital reconstructions, whether three-dimensional models or imaging tools that allow for the re-creation of vanished urban and social realities.

Finally, the issue of reconstruction, especially that of documentary collections, may be linked to that of restitution. Presentations may thus connect the challenges of reconstruction with potential claims for the restitution of archaeological artifacts, works of art, written heritage, or manuscript collections made by the Palestinian authorities, whether addressed to the Israeli authorities or the former colonial powers, as well as to the states and institutions in Europe or North America that hold this type of heritage.

Proposals for presentations should be sent in English or French to veronique.bontemps[at]cnrs.fr, norig.neveu[at]univ-amu.fr, and Syrine.Saltaji[at]univ-paris1.fr by October 15, 2026. Applicants will receive a response by mid-November. Abstracts should indicate the sources and research areas on which the presentation will be based. They should not exceed 500 words and must be accompanied by a brief author bio (250 words maximum).

The conference is preparing a collective publication. Preliminary contributions should be submitted by April 15, 2027, to allow time for discussion. Following the conference, a first draft of the article will be due by December 15, 2027 (publication is planned for late 2028/early 2029).

CFP: Creating, Narrating, Documenting, and Archiving Violence from Exile

Creating, Narrating, Documenting, and Archiving Violence from Exile 

Contemporary forms of violence affecting Southwest Asia (often referred to by the colonial designation “Middle East”), Africa, and Latin America raise fundamental questions about how asymmetrical violence produced by wars, genocides, political massacres, and conflicts linked to the extraction of natural resources can be documented, narrated, and archived (de Swaan, 2016). These situations are frequently characterized by the impossibility, or great difficulty, of accessing research sites, as well as by the destruction, confiscation, or absence of archives and testimonies, whether written, visual, or oral. At the same time, there is an urgent need to narrate, show, interpret, and render these forms of violence intelligible within Western institutional, media, and cultural spaces. This responsibility is often borne by diasporic communities, exiled people, or generations born in exile, who become privileged mediators of these narratives. As they enter these frameworks, such subjects may sometimes find themselves in the position of “bodies out of place” (“space invaders”), having to negotiate their legitimacy within Western institutions that may tend to fetishize or constrain their voices (Puwar, 2004). 

Faced with these constraints, exiled and diasporic communities develop practices of creation, documentation, and archiving from within spaces of exile. Today, these practices increasingly take place through social media, using smartphone images or born-digital archives. Yet these intrinsically volatile materials confront genuine “algorithms of oppression” (Noble, 2018), shaped by the logics of commercial surveillance and the invisible censorship of platforms that tend to erase traces of the violence endured. While these initiatives seek to counter such invisibilization by making exile a space of refuge and of alternative knowledge production, this dynamic nevertheless calls for a crucial conceptual distinction between the subjects who carry it forward. 

As Edward Said points out in Reflections on Exile (2000), whereas the diaspora often takes shape over the long term as a political and transnational collective endowed with a public voice, exile remains a raw, solitary, and incurable rupture linked to the immediate loss of one’s place of origin. Diasporic space must therefore be understood as a complex and heterogeneous cartography (Brah, 2005), traversed by relations of power and generational asymmetries. The emergence of forms of “postmemory” (Hirsch, 2012) among second generations raises profound ethical questions: it is necessary to examine the risk of a certain discursive hegemony or an idealization of narratives by Western diasporic spaces, to the detriment of the voices of recently exiled people or of those who remain within the actual geography of violence. 

In response to these issues, this study day approaches research-creation not as a mere mode of dissemination but, following Erin Manning and Brian Massumi (Thought in the Act, 2018), as a genuine methodology for producing situated forms of knowledge and “thought in the act.” In contexts where the field is confiscated or destroyed, artistic and speculative practices do not simply illustrate history: they actively contribute to bringing it into being by creating new concepts and new ways of documenting the sensible. This study day therefore proposes to examine the methodological, ethical, epistemological, and theoretical dimensions of these practices from the perspective of exile. 

Themes for Reflection 

Theme 1 — Documenting and Archiving Violence from Exile and Diasporas 
● How is it possible to produce, from exile or within diasporas, shareable forms of knowledge that are sensitive and capable of documenting ongoing violence? 
● To what extent do these practices of inquiry, creation, and documentation contribute to writing a history of the present from exile? 
● What tools, methods, and research-creation frameworks make it possible to document and archive violence through sensitive forms, particularly in the face of the volatility of digital archives? 
● What ethical and epistemological questions, linked to situated thinking in Donna Haraway’s sense (Situated Knowledges, 1988), emerge when research or creation is carried out from exile? What tensions or asymmetries of visibility arise between the direct biographical memory of exiled people and the “postmemory” of generations born in the diaspora? How can Western institutional structures be prevented from appropriating the voices of those working on the ground? 
  
Theme 2 — Creating and Narrating from Exile 
● How are deterritorialized experiences and memories of violence, shaped by exile, constructed and transmitted through artistic practices and research? 
● To what extent do artistic practices developed from within spaces of exile and diaspora displace, decolonize, or renew perspectives on contemporary forms of violence? 
● What relationships do creative works produced from exile or within diasporas maintain with situated narratives of violence? How do creative practices and forms of knowledge production emerging from these spaces interact, nourish one another, and contribute to narrating lived experiences and memories? 
● What connections can be established between creative works and knowledge production devoted to the colonial pasts of these three regions and the contemporary forms of violence that affect them? 

These avenues for reflection are not intended to be exhaustive, but rather to open up dialogue. We welcome original proposals exploring other questions related to the themes of this study day. 

Profiles and Disciplines Sought 

We welcome proposals from artists (visual arts, live arts, music, literature, etc.) whose work privileges investigative or research-creation approaches, as well as from researchers in the humanities and social sciences who work with artists or draw on practices from the field of art. We also encourage proposals from art historians, exhibition curators, anthropologists, sociologists, and other researchers analyzing artistic productions in relation to contemporary forms of violence in the three regions concerned. Proposals from master’s and doctoral students are warmly welcomed. 

Proposals situated within cultural and visual studies, memory studies, studies of mass violence, decolonial and postcolonial approaches, as well as any other theoretical perspective resonating with the issues addressed by this study day, are welcome. 
The proposed formats are deliberately hybrid and may take the form of an academic presentation, a performative lecture, a workshop (particularly one devoted to sharing tools or methodologies), an urban walk, or a research-creation project presentation. 

Timeline 

● Call for papers issued: September 1, 2026 
● Submission deadline: November 15, 2026, at midnight (Montreal time) 
● Notification of decisions: no later than December 15, 2026 
● Study day: February 23, 2027, in Montreal (UQAM) 

Submission Guidelines 

Proposals must include: 
● A title; 
● An abstract of no more than 300 words; 
● Three to five keywords; 
● A short biography of no more than 150 words. 

Proposals must be sent by November 15, 2026, to the following address: labard.axe1@gmail.com. Please indicate in your proposal the format envisaged for presenting your work.Artists working in visual and media arts, live arts, or music may, where relevant, include up to three images, a video link, or an audio link in addition to their proposal. 
Proposals may be submitted in French or English. The study day will be bilingual and will take place in a hybrid format (in person and online). 

A selection of contributions will be published in a peer-reviewed edited volume. Unfortunately, travel, transportation, and accommodation expenses cannot be covered. Lunch and coffee breaks will be provided to participants. 

Scientific Direction and Organization 

● Scientific direction: Professor Bahar Majdzadeh, as part of the 2027 exhibition-conference 
entitled “Know-How and Being: Strategies and Practices of Decolonial Research-Creation,” 
within the Decolonial Art and Research Laboratory (LabARD). 

● Organization: Clara Tabra Osorio and Ivette Doizi Cofre 

Selected Bibliography 

● BRAH, Avtar (2005). Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. London, Routledge. 
● DE SWAAN, Abram (2015). The Killing Compartments: The Mentality of Mass Murder. New Haven: Yale University Press. 
● FIGUEROA-VÁSQUEZ, Yomaira C. (2020). Decolonizing Diasporas: Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature. Chicago, Northwestern University Press. 
● HARAWAY, Donna (1988). “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the  Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Feminist Studies, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 575–599. 
● HIRSCH, Marianne (2012). The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After  the Holocaust. New York, Columbia University Press. 
● MANNING, Erin and MASSUMI, Brian (2014). Thought in the Act: Passages in the Ecology of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 
● PUWAR, Nirmal (2004). Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place. New York, Berg. 
● SAID, Edward W. (2000). Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 
● SPIVAK, Gayatri Chakravorty (1988). “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 271–313. 
● NOBLE, Safiya Umoja (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce 
Racism. New York, New York University Press.

Contact Information

LabARD

Contact Email

labard.axe1@gmail.com

URL

https://labard.uqam.ca

CFP: Far-Right Archives in the Digital Age

CFP
Far-Right Archives in the Digital Age
Wiener Holocaust Library, London. Friday 27 November 2026, 10.30am-4pm

NB: This is an IN PERSON event. There is unfortunately no hybrid option. 

Improved digital access to far-right material at archives, libraries, and beyond has been benefitting researchers and anti-far right educators and activists. It also presents challenges, not least amidst a surge in public support for far-right parties and an increase in racist and antisemitic incidents.

This one-day workshop will bring together archivists, librarians, scholars, educators, and practitioners, to explore the opportunities and challenges of researching, preserving, and teaching with far-right materials in an increasingly digital environment.

We invite proposals for contributions that engage with one or more of the following themes:

  • Challenges of digitisation and access to far-right archival collections, including practical, ethical, legal, and methodological considerations.
  • Digital materials and pedagogy, including teaching with born-digital or digitised far-right sources, and broader approaches to teaching with far-right materials.
  • Artificial intelligence, social media, and far-right research, including the ethics of use of AI in archival and research contexts, digital methods, platform studies, and the implications of emerging technologies for the study of the far right, including the use of AI and social media platforms by contemporary far-right groups.

Rather than formal conference papers, we invite informal ten-minute presentations that introduce a challenge, case study, project, or methodological question. Presentations should conclude with one or more questions to stimulate discussion, allowing the workshop to prioritise conversation, knowledge exchange, and collaborative problem-solving.

We warmly encourage participation from:

  • Archivists and librarians
  • Curators
  • Academics, including early career researchers and doctoral students
  • Educators and teachers
  • Practitioners working in far-right prevention and counter-extremism
  • Digital humanities scholars and digital preservation specialists
  • AI, social media, and digital technology experts whose work intersects with these issues

Our goal is to create an interdisciplinary and welcoming forum where participants can share expertise, reflect on common challenges, and identify opportunities for future collaboration.

Submission
Please email a short abstract of up to 150 words by Tuesday, 29 September to Rosie Frank at rfrank@wienerholocaustlibrary.org outlining your proposed presentation and indicating which workshop theme(s) it addresses.

We look forward to bringing together colleagues from across sectors to discuss the future of far-right archives and research in the digital age.

This event is a collaboration between the Wiener Holocaust Library, London, as part of its National Heritage Lottery Fund project ‘Digital Transformation: Connecting Collections and Communities’, and Dr Rachel Moss, the University of Northampton, in relation to her British Academy Small Research Grant ‘Medievalism, gender and politicised nostalgia in the British extreme right, 1962 – 1982’. There will be a modest fund available for travel expenses for colleagues who are unable to access institutional funding; please contact us for further details.

Contact Information

Submit abstracts to at rfrank@wienerholocaustlibrary.org; for more general queries, email rachel.moss@northampton.ac.uk. 

Contact Email

rfrank@wienerholocaustlibrary.org

URL

https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org

Call for Digital Posters: Scotland’s Community Heritage Conversations 2026

The Scottish Council on Archives is delighted to share that submissions for the digital poster session at this year’s Scotland’s Community Heritage Conversations hybrid event are now open! The  event will take place Thursday 26 November 2026 at the Engine Shed, Stirling and Microsoft Teams.

Digital Poster/Video Session (2026) 

This year’s event will feature a digital poster/video session, designed to let community heritage groups and organisations show off their projects, work and initiatives. This is a fantastic opportunity to showcase your organisation or project to a diverse group of delegates. We will be displaying posters/video clips based on the conference theme Sharing our Strengths, in a constant loop throughout the day on large screens situated in the Open Hall at the Engine Shed. This is the space where delegates will be networking and enjoying refreshments and lunch. You could also use your poster/video as a background slide for your one-minute mayhem talk, a 60-second ‘soap-box’ opportunity to share your news and views on any aspect of Scotland’s community heritage. It’s a great way for people to know about your work and it’s easy to submit a poster by following these simple instructions: 

 To submit a poster:  

  • Create a bold and informative poster that tells the story of your organisation using our Poster-Template-2026. Get inspiration from from last year’s posters. 
  • Include your group’s name and any other important details, such as a website or social media page – where you want people to reach out to you.  
  • Make sure the submission is on a single widescreen PowerPoint slide and is accessible (see below). 
  • Send it as an email attachment to Marissa Trimble, m.trimble@scottisharchives.org.uk with the subject line POSTER SCHC CONFERENCE 2026 by Monday 9 November. Text within the email must include: 1. Group name; 2. Name of contact person in the group; 3. Email address of contact person.  

Make your poster accessible:   

  • Font size minimum of 24pt   
  • Use contrasting colours, e.g. Black text on a light background. Avoid light fonts on light backgrounds, or dark on dark which are hard to read.   
  • Make images or graphics large and clear    
  • Use a sans serif font which is readable  

To submit a video: 

  • Videos must be no longer than 20 seconds 
  • We cannot play sound when showing these videos so if someone is speaking you will need to have captions 

We’d love to see you at the conference in person, but if you can’t attend, please still send your poster/video so attendees can learn more about your group!  

If you have any questions or want your poster checked for accessibility, feel free to contact m.trimble@scottisharchives.org.uk  

Deadline for submissions: 9 November 2026 

CFP: Critical Digital Archives. Travel, Translation, Transformation.  A Hybrid Symposium on Archives in and from the SWANA Region

British Institute for Libyan and Northern African Studies (BILNAS) 
School of Advanced Studies, University of London (ILCS-ICS) 
21–22 January 2027 

Call for papers: Critical Digital Archives. Travel, Translation, Transformation.  

A Hybrid Symposium on Archives in and from the SWANA Region. 

This symposium aims to provide a forum for scholars, archivists, community and cultural organizations interested in critical approaches to digital archives containing materials from and about the SWANA (Southwest Asia and North Africa) region, understood as a geographic, historical, and cultural space. In this space, archives have been historically imposed, looted, extracted, dispersed, destroyed, but also rescued, rebuilt and reinvented, pioneering practices of resistance, reparation and return that raise compelling ethical, theoretical and practical questions for scholars and stakeholders (Ghaddar, 2025). Building on Itza Carbajal and Michelle Caswell’s framework (2021), our approach seeks to advance a language-sensitive understanding of reparative archival practices that are attentive to and accountable for the technological, social, and environmental impacts of digital archives.  

We are interested in digitisation as a transformative process that reshapes archival practices, knowledge production, and power relations. 

Conceived as a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and horizontal forum, the symposium invites participants, both in person and online, to engage in discussion and exchange around three interconnected themes and interpretative lenses. Two keynote speakers – Sara Salem (LSE) and Amanda Egbe (UWE) – will act as discussants, facilitating collective reflection and dialogue around participants’ contributions. The three themes of the symposium are Travel, Translation and Transformation: 

Travel: Archives in Movement 

This strand explores journeys and movement both as subjects represented in archival collections and as conditions shaping the archive itself, opening up questions of archival looting, dispersal and dispossession as well as care, stewardship, and reparation. Discussions may engage with spatial humanities approaches, including digital mapping and gazetteers; the displacement and mobility of archives; practices and ethics of archival solidarity and return; and questions of heritage, ownership, and identity from indigenous and diasporic perspectives. 

Translation: Languages in the Archive 

This strand will examine issues relating to languages and translation, both in the records and in the archival metadata that make them searchable by and accessible to stakeholders. We will especially welcome contributions reflecting on the role of metadata as descriptive as well as interpretative text, exploring the potential for linguistic, semantic and epistemological translations.  We will also welcome contributions that explore the multilinguality of archival records as enduring representations of human activity and consider the practices and ethics of reparative translation in digital archives. 

Transformation: Digital Futures and Ethics of Dematerialization 

The third strand will look at digitisation as a transformative process for the archive that involves new materialities and highlights new absences. We aim to discuss the impact of digital projects on key stakeholders (users, subjects of records, source communities). We invite contributions on the fragility of digitised and born-digital heritage, as well as the specific biases and risks that digitalisation processes may introduce, particularly through the reproduction, by digital tools, of historical and ongoing harms to people and the environment.  

We also aim to assess the potential of digital technology, especially non-corporate and low-threshold, to act as vectors of resistance and tools against erasure. 

Keynote speakers:   

Sara Salem is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the London School of Economics. Her first book, published with Cambridge University Press, is entitled Anticolonial Afterlives in Egypt: The Politics of Hegemony (2020). Her second book, co-authored with Mai Taha, is entitled Anticolonial Radios: On the Sonic Lives of Internationalism, forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Along with Mai Taha, she curates Archive Stories, a platform exploring radical and creative archives. 

Amanda Egbe is a Senior Lecturer in Media Production at the University of the West of England and leads Heritage Futures, a practice-led research programme building infrastructure for heritage at risk through archives, film, and digital systems. Her research focuses on how cultural memory is documented, governed, protected, transformed, or lost in contexts shaped by social change, technological transformation, environmental stress, and historical inequity.  

Convenors:  

Barbara Spadaro, University of Liverpool 

Valeria Vitale, University of Sheffield 

The event is jointly hosted by the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies (ILCS) and the Institute of Classical Studies (ICS) at the School of Advanced Studies, University of London, and funded by the British Institute for Libyan and North African Studies (BILNAS).  

Please send via email a 300words abstract and short bio to b.spadaro@liverpool.ac.uk and v.vitale@sheffield.ac.uk  

Deadline: 30 SEPTEMBER 2026 

A limited number of travel bursaries will be offered to participants travelling to the symposium in London. 

URL: https://ics.sas.ac.uk/news-events/events/critical-digital-archives-travel-translation-transformation

Contact Email

b.spadaro@liverpool.ac.uk

URL: https://ics.sas.ac.uk/news-events/events/critical-digital-archives-travel-translation-transformation

CFP: Poster and Demo Submissions for IDCC27

Poster and demo submissions for IDCC27 open until 16 October

There’s still time to submit your Poster or Demonstration proposal. You have until 16 October to secure the opportunity to join other international presenters at the 21st International Digital Curation Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, from 9-12 February 2027.

  • Poster Submissions: Offer a great opportunity to showcase and promote your work through images, interact with others, gather feedback, and exchange ideas.
  • Demonstrations: Showcase a working software tool, hardware prototype, or interactive system.

Submit your proposals now!

CFP: Material Culture Workshop: “Re-Materialising: Navigating Transience and Absence” – University of Cambridge

Deadline: Sept. 11, 2026

The Material Culture Workshop at the University of Cambridge invites submissions for 20 minute papers for our Michaelmas 2026 sessions on the theme “Re-Materialising: Navigating Transience and Absence.”

  • How do we approach object-based studies without the object?
  • How can we use extant archival material to “reconstruct” the material lives of groups and individuals traditionally underrepresented in institutional collections?
  • How does the archive present challenges and opportunities as a material object itself?

This theme invites projects which challenge disciplinary divisions and embrace material culture studies of non-extant objects and understudied groups. Papers may engage with themes of fragmentation, archival absence, loss, transient objects/experiences, unconventional archival practice, and related topics.

The Material Culture Workshop is convened by postgraduate students Cecelia Eure and Robert Hewis and aims to highlight the work of early career researchers and practitioners in history, art history, archaeology, anthropology, cultural studies, and related disciplines. It is hosted in-person at the University of Cambridge and online at 5:30 pm every other Monday.

Submissions must include a title, abstract (250 words), and a brief bio, sent as a Word document to Cecelia Eure (cre48@cam.ac.uk) by 11 September 2026.

Contact Information

Faculty of History, University of Cambridge

Contact Email

cre48@cam.ac.uk

CFP: Star Wars 50 Years: Pasts, Presents, and Futures

The Star Wars 50 Years academic conference will be held by the University of Leicester and the Leverhulme Centre for Humanity and Space at Space Park Leicester on 21-22 May 2027 in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the original release of the film on 25 May 1977 in the U.S. We are now inviting proposals for conference presentations.

Conference Organisers:

Xiyuan Gao, PhD Candidate – Conference Director
Dr David Christopher – Conference Co-Director
Dr James Aitcheson – Leverhulme Centre Partner
Dr Tara Smith – Leverhulme Centre Partner
Helen Bruce, PhD Candidate – Director, Festival of Media Stories

Overview

Star Wars: A New Hope was first released in the United States on 25 May 1977, inaugurating a screen franchise whose cultural, industrial, and imaginative afterlives now span half a century. The Star Wars 50 Years Conference will mark the anniversary by bringing together scholars, researchers, practitioners, archivists, and fans at the Leverhulme Centre for Humanity and Space in Leicester contiguous with The National Space Centre.

The Centre hosts numerous Star Wars-themed public events throughout the year, and we will be excited to follow their developing programme with an eye to connecting their events and screenings to the conference.

Leicester and Leicestershire occupy a distinctive place in the history of Star Wars in the UK. Leicestershire was home to Palitoy, the toy company that held the coveted manufacturing contract in the UK during the original trilogy era.

Palitoy’s Star Wars figures, vehicles, packaging, and playsets remain central to British collecting cultures and to the material memory of the franchise, linking Leicestershire to the commercial and affective history of Star Wars childhoods, fandom, and merchandising. Indeed, Matt Holt’s upcoming documentary In a Landfill Far, Far Away (Spoon Jar Films) seeks to discover the so-called ‘lost toys’ from the Palitoy factory putatively buried somewhere in Leicestershire which is sure to create a scholarly buzz: ‘Filmmaker unearths legend of buried Star Wars toys’.

Leicestershire’s connection to the franchise is also embodied in personnel history. The late Jeremy Bulloch, born in Market Harborough, was the first actor to perform Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, helping to create one of the most enduring and enigmatic figures in Star Wars. His association with Boba Fett further situates Leicestershire within the lived and performed history of Star Wars, extending the county’s relevance beyond merchandising and into questions of screen performance, character embodiment, cult stardom, and fan memory. Gareth Edwards, director of Rogue One also calls Nuneaton home.

More broadly, the franchise has launched or fostered the careers of myriad British performers from Sir Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing though to John Boyega, Felicity Jones, and Daisy Ridley. And so much of Lucas’s production efforts were located at various studios and locations across the UK including locations in Leicestershire.

Star Wars 50 Years invites contributors to reflect on the franchise’s pasts, presents, and futures, especially with regard to the participation of UK production inputs or international franchise phenomena, but not necessarily limited by this parameter as such. The conference welcomes papers on Star Wars across film, television, animation, games, publishing, merchandising, fan communities, transmedia storytelling, race, gender, class, politics, technology, nostalgia, and global reception, etc.

By gathering in Leicester, the conference asks not only what Star Wars has meant over the past fifty years, but also how particular places, objects, performances, institutions, and communities have shaped the franchise’s meanings across the UK and beyond.

Topics of Interest

We welcome papers on, but not limited to, the following research topics:

  • Star Wars histories, legacies, and cultural memory.
  • Directors, writers, producers, showrunners, designers, performers, and other creative workers across the franchise.
  • Star Wars and transmedia storytelling across film, television, animation, novels, comics, games, audio, toys, and digital platforms.
  • Expanded universes, canon, continuity, retconning, and the relationship between Legends and Disney-era canon.
  • Star Wars television and Disney+ distribution.
  • Star Wars animation (The Clone Wars, Rebels, and more recent animated projects).
  • Star Wars games, interactive storytelling, virtual worlds, and player agency.
  • Ethnicity, class, disability, age, and embodiment in Star Wars.
  • Feminism, female characters, creators, audiences, and female-led fan practices.
  • Masculinity, fatherhood, family, lineage, inheritance, and dynastic storytelling.
  • Queer readings, slash fandom, transformative works, and alternative affective attachments.
  • Stardom, performance, voice acting, physical performance, puppetry, motion capture, and creature performance.
  • Practical effects, digital effects, CGI, sound design, editing, and the aesthetics of technological change.
  • John Williams, musical themes, soundscapes, voice, and sonic memory.
  • Merchandising, toys, collecting, licensing, branding, and commercial culture.
  • Museums, exhibitions, archives, private collections, fan collections, and the preservation of Star Wars objects.
  • Global Star Wars: international reception, translation, dubbing, subtitling, censorship, distribution, and localisation.
  • Fandom, fanfiction, fan art, cosplay, fan films, podcasts, conventions, online communities, and platform cultures.
  • Fan controversy, anti-fandom, canon disputes, toxicity, moderation, inclusion, and community governance.
  • Nostalgia, childhood, memory, intergenerational spectatorship, collecting, and affect.
  • Science, space travel, astronomy, robotics, artificial intelligence, and the relationship between Star Wars and public science imagination.
  • Theme parks, immersive experiences, live events, exhibitions, tourism, and commercialised fan participation.
  • Archives, lost materials, production histories, oral histories, memory work, and fan-led preservation.
  • The future of Star Wars: franchise fatigue, renewal, legacy, and new audiences.

The conference is scheduled to be on-site and in-person. The submission of remote presentation proposals will be considered only under specific mitigating circumstances.

Submission Details

Individual Papers

The individual proposal shall include the following information, all in the same document:

  • A title.
  • An abstract (maximum 300 words) for a 15-20-minute presentation.
  • Speaker’s short biography (maximum 150 words), including affiliation.
  • Speaker’s email address.

Pre-constituted Panels

The panel proposal shall include the following information, all in the same document:

  • A panel title.
  • All individual abstracts (maximum 300 words each).
  • All speakers’ short biographies (maximum 150 words each), including their affiliation and email address.
  • If you wish to designate a panel chair, please indicate this in the panel proposal. Otherwise, the committee will assign one for you.

To submit, please email your proposal as an attachment (Word file preferred) to sw-conf-50@leicester.ac.uk by 1-November-2026. Please clearly state in the email subject either “Star Wars 50 Years individual proposal” or “Star Wars 50 Years panel proposal”.

Notification of accepted papers and panel proposals will be returned on or before 31st January 2027.

Conference Address

Space Park Leicester
Space City, 92 Corporation Rd, Leicester
Postcode: LE4 5SP

Contact Information

If you have any queries regarding the conference, please email conference director Xiyuan Gao (xg92@leicester.ac.uk) or co-director Dr David Christopher (dc435@leicester.ac.uk).

General enquiries: sw-conf-50@leicester.ac.uk

Contact Email

sw-conf-50@leicester.ac.uk

URL

https://le.ac.uk/media/research/star-wars-50-years

CFP: Scottish Council on Archives Annual Conference 2026

ARCHIVES AND RECORDS AT THE HEART OF SOCIETY

Date: Tuesday, 3rd November 2026
Venue: Meeting Rooms, Tynecastle Park, Heart of Midlothian FC, McLeod St, Edinburgh EH11 2NL

Deadline for papers: Monday 21st September

The Scottish Council on Archives (SCA) is pleased to invite proposals for papers for its 2026 annual conference with the broad theme of ‘Archives and Records at the Heart of Society’. This year, we want to explore the essential role that archives and records play in underpinning democracy and accountability as well as inspiring creativity, wellbeing and community building.

The conference is an opportunity to highlight how archives and records management services underpin and support every almost aspect of society. Archives and records provide us with the evidence to challenge decisions and hold authorities to account. Archives and records contribute to vibrant and cohesive communities by telling the stories of places and the people who have lived there; to health and wellbeing, through use of archival material to help with a variety of conditions, including dementia; and to economic impact, by supporting the growing ancestral tourism market.

Whether you work in archives, records management, conservation, community archives, research, education or policy, we want to hear how your work is contributing to a more transparent, accountable, vibrant and healthier society.

We welcome proposals that may include (but are not limited to):

  • Archives and records as infrastructure for democracy, justice, and governance — case studies, advocacy work, or reflections on the importance and impact of the sector
  • Records management and accountability — examples of how good records practice has supported transparency, efficiency and/or public trust in institutions
  • Supporting the case for a future national strategy for archives and records
  • Inspiring and engaging with communities and/or promoting wellbeing
  • Responding to contemporary challenges and inquiries — engagement with public inquiries, emerging crises, or rapidly changing societal and technological issues such as AI
  • Demonstrating how archives and records support local and/or national economies
  • Case studies on any aspect of recordkeeping that speaks to the conference theme

Format:

  • 20-minute individual papers/presentations (in-person is preferred but a pre-recorded presentation will be considered)

Submission Details:

To submit your proposal, please email Marissa Trimble at m.trimble@scottisharchives.org.uk by the deadline of 21st September 2025. Your submission (maximum five hundred words) should include:

  • Presentation title and description
  • Name of your organisation (if applicable)
  • Your preference for presenting in person or prerecorded

Speakers will have their conference attendance fee and reasonable travel expenses covered. Please note that as a small charity, SCA is unable to offer speaker fees.

If you would like to discuss the event before submitting, please contact SCA Director, John Pelan at j.pelan@scottisharchives.org.uk

Deadline for papers: 21st September

Other Key Dates:

Bookings open: w/b 17th August

Programme decision made: 25th September

Full programme published: w/b 28th September

Conference: 3rd November