Lithuanian Euro-integration, National Identity, and Collective Historical Memory

Institute of Culture, Philosohpy and Art in Vilnius kindly invite to participate in the international conference
“Lithuanian Euro-integration, National Identity, and Collective Historical Memory”
November 20-21, 2009 Vilnius

organized by Institute of Culture, Philosophy and Art, Department of Comparative Cultural Studies.

The conference will be an opportunity to bring together scholars and researchers from Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Belarus, Russia, and other countries to discuss the role of collective historical memory in shaping and re-shaping of national, ethnic, and collective identities; to analyze the ways of archiving and managing historical narratives. The developing of social and political self-understanding is a crucial factor in explaining what kinds of collective historical memories, historical narratives, and socio-historical trauma foster or inhibit the political and cultural involvement in the processes of European integration; in showing what historical narratives and systems of memory have supported the on-going formation of the Lithuanian national identity as it lived through the Soviet occupation and continued into the period of the re-establishment of the sovereignty of the Republic of Lithuania.

The organizing committee is calling for applications and presentations from historians, sociologists, philosophers, historians of culture and art, including other related areas of research, analyzing the ways in which sovietized historical narratives during Lithuania’s occupation changed the Lithuanians’ perspective on their own past and helped to construct the new “Soviet man”, also the manners in which the traits of Soviet identity are being forgotten or marginalized after the State Independence in 1991. It is also important to understand how the archive of historical collective memory is used in education - in textbooks of history and literature, also various formats of mass media; it needs to be elucidated what traits of Pan-European, national, and ethnic identities are implemented and strengthened by the present Lithuanian educational system.

Proposed Conference Topics:

• European Integration and Re-shaping of National and Ethnic Identity;
  
• European and/or National and Ethnic Identity;
  
• The Role of Collective Historical Memory in Overcoming the Soviet Occupation;
  
• Politics of Memory: Archives and Narratives;
  
• Traumas in Collective Historical Memory: Recounting and Reticence;
  
• Collective Historical Memory: the Social, Ethno-Cultural Identities and Narratives;
  
• Soviet Historical Narrative: the Rise of the New “Soviet Man”;
  
• Traits of the “Soviet Man” in Historical Narratives and Collective Memory;
  
• Social Self-consciousness, Citizenship, and Education.

The deadline for submitting applications is September 30, 2009.
Registration fee is not required for the participants of the conference; accomodation is guaranteed (no fee).

Zilvine Gaizutyte-Filipaviciene
Institute of Culture, Philosophy and Art
Saltoniskiu 58 g.
Vilnius, Lithuania
E-mail: zilvine@gmail.com
Phone: +370 612 45643
site: www.kfmi.lt

APPLICATION FORM

International Scientific Conference
LITHUANIAN EURO-INTEGRATION, NATIONAL IDENTITY AND COLLECTIVE HISTORICAL MEMORY
20-21 November 2009 Vilnius, Lithuania

Family Name, Surname:
Place of Employment and Current Position:
Academic Degree and Rank:
Full address (including the postcode):
Phone; Fax:
E-mail:
Theme of presentation (Please, mention title and conference topic):
Presentation abstract (Maximum length 1800 characters):
Is accommodation required? Yes/ No
Is multimedia required? Yes*/ No

If answer is Yes, please describe requirements:

Please send your application to dr. Žilvinė Gaižutytė-Filipavičienė by e-mail: zilvine@gmail.com.