Slow Memory Bulletin 6/2024
Dear Slow Memory Community,
We hope this email finds you well and in good spirits. As we are approaching our final grant year, we have some news to share with you.
You can always keep up to date with us on Facebook and Instagram and newly on LinkedIn and Bluesky!
*Slow Memory COST Action (CA20105) Capstone Conference in Porto, 2–5 July 2025
Organized by Alice Semedo and Isabel Machado Alexandre
From 2021 to 2025, the COST Action “Slow Memory: Transformative Practices for Times of Uneven and Accelerating Change” has brought together over 300 scholars and stakeholders, from over 40 countries andmany disciplines and career stages. We have considered how to capture and respond to environmental, economic and social change through the novel concept of “slow memory.” Our goal has been to trigger a new discovery phase in memory studies by providing a platform for networked, transnational, multidisciplinary research and policy-making that moves beyond the focus on conflict and eventfulness in commemoration. We discussed and shared ideas in many in-person and online meetings, training schools, workshops and writing retreats, producing working papers, a podcast, a virtual exhibition and dozens of scholarly publications. Along the way, we practiced a “slow” form of meeting, resisting the pressures of sped-up academia and engaging with different places and communities, taking walks and visiting sites that helped us develop an understanding at different tempos.
At the Slow Memory Capstone Conference in Porto from 2–5 July 2025, we will gather to take stock of and present what we have learned and to consider how the concept of slow memory can move beyond what we have seen and done in the Action. We invite not only active members of the Action but also others to join us!
Read the proposal in full on our webpage and send your ideas or proposals to jenny.wustenberg@ntu.ac.uk by 31 January 2025.
*Join us for the Policy Writing Workshop, Dec. 11-12, 2024 (online)
with Dr. Ana Milosevic & UNESCO Representative, introduced by Prof. Jenny Wüstenberg
Organized by Vjollca Krasniqi and Layla Zibar
The workshop will take place online on 11-12 December, 10-12 am (CET). Register via this link.
In this workshop, participants will acquire a comprehensive understanding of “slow memory” concepts and their relevance to policy-making, while concurrently developing practical skills for integrating interdisciplinary approaches into policy frameworks. Attendees will engage in the creation of concrete action plans for implementing “slow memory” principles within their professional contexts. The overarching goal of this initiative is to contribute to the expansion of a network of professionals committed to thoughtful and resilient policy approaches, thereby ensuring a lasting impact on the field.
Find out more on our webpage.
*New Podcast Episodes Available!
We launched the Slow Memory Podcast this year as another collaborative project to communicate our work, concepts and contexts to broader audiences. The following episodes are available wherever you listen to podcasts:
- Episode 5: Slow Memory and the Art of Caring
Narrated by Marileen La Haije - Episode 4: 8 March as Slow Commemoration
Narrated by Sara Jones and Maija Spurina - Episode 3: Slow Memory in Curatorial Work
Narrated by Vjollca Krasniqi, Isabel Machado Alexandre and Alice Semedo - Episode 2: What is the Slow Memory COST Action?
Narrated by Sarah Dybris McQuaid, Joanna Wawrzyniak and Jenny Wüstenberg - Episode 1: Slow Memory Manifesto
We warmly thank everyone involved in the production of the podcast and are looking forward to next episodes. Stay tuned for more information, and subscribe to our podcast on all available platforms!
*2024 Annual Meeting in Belgrade: Conference and Working Group Reports
This year, our Annual Action Meeting took place in Belgrade, Serbia. In the general report, Orli Fridman looks back on this great event. Browse and read the Working Group reports on the Belgrade meeting as well.
*2024 Slow Memory Writing Retreat (Teltow, Berlin)
In September, a group of Slow Memory COST Action members met in Teltow, near Berlin, to engage in collaborative writing and work on Action deliverables and publication projects. The writing retreat is a fun way of meeting, co-working and catching up, and we will organize another one next year – which will be the last of the Slow Memory project!
*Working Papers
As the Action is kicking off its fourth grant year, we have managed to assemble an impressive range of Working Papers. These papers have been (co)authored by members of the Action and its Working Groups, dealing with pertinent questions such as climate change, the Anthropocene, welfare, conflict resolution, memory tourism, memory events and eventfulness. These papers put forth varying notions of what Slow Memory means in different contexts. Check them out – they are all openly accessible!
*New Journal in Memory Studies: Meet the Memory Studies Review!
Memory Studies Review’s inaugural Special Issue, “Memory and Environment,” has now been published! The issue is available online – in full and Open Access – and we invite you to browse through it. This journal is co-edited by the Action members Justyna Tabaszewska and Hanna Teichler, alongside Erol Gülüm and Paul Leworthy.
Moving forward, we would like to ask you to help us promote the journal. Please do spread the word – tell your colleagues and students that there is a new, exciting publication venue in the field of Memory Studies. Memory Studies Review is open to all and to all kinds of memory-related research!
The next issue, a Special Issue co-edited by Sarah Gensburger and Frédéric Clavert (both Action members), has already entered the production phase. Stay tuned for issue two, which poses the question “Is Artificial Intelligence the Future of Collective Memory?” and will appear later this year.
*Looking Ahead
The Working Groups are currently developing Special Issues and educational materials, so stay tuned for more information on this matter. There is an online exhibition in the making, to be hosted and published on our website, which will blow all our minds. More podcast episodes will be available in due time, and we will continue to publish working papers and reports from within the Working Groups. The core group (plus a few additional Action members) will be meeting to discuss how Slow Memory is relevant to policy-makers in Tirana (Albania) in late March 2025. And we are currently in discussions with curators at the House of European History (Brussels) about a collaborative project. As the communication team, we are currently exploring the EU Commission’s Portal “Open Research Europe” to gain an even wider audience for our collaborative research, in particular for the Working Papers.
We are very much looking forward to this last grant year and what it has in store for us!
We hope to see you in Porto!
With our best wishes for a peaceful and festive season,
Jenny Wüstenberg and Joanna Wawrzyniak, Co-Chairs
Hanna Teichler and Taylor McConnell, Dissemination & Communication Co-Chairs
