CfP: Slow Memory. Perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe​

CfP: Slow Memory. Perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe​

Guest editors:

Monika Vrzgulová, Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology SAS;

Barbara Törnquist-Plewa, Lund University;

Violeta Davoliūtė, Vilnius University

This special issue of Slovak Ethnology (volume 72, No 4/2024) is thematically focused on the concept of slow memory, which relates to transformative practices and processes of uneven and accelerating change in society. We invite authors from various disciplines, such as ethnology, sociology and anthropology, history, political science, communication and media, literary studies, etc., to submit contributions that discuss and give empirical examples of the emerging concept of slow memory.

This special issue of Slovak Ethnology is thematically related to the Cost Action CA 20105 Slow Memory: Transformative Practices for Times of Uneven and Accelerating Change (SlowMemo).

Memory studies, which emerged at the end of the 20th century, brought a new way of thinking about past events into academia. Scholars within the interdisciplinary field concentrate primarily on significant or extreme past events (e.g., wars and genocides) and the meaning given to them in the present. Moreover, during the last two decades, the focus has been on emphasizing the dynamics of memories and analysing current struggles over how to remember specific events.

Consequently, memory studies as a scholarly field has been much less concerned with “slow-moving”, diffused, and symptomless events that can not simply be attributed to a particular date or place but which significantly affect peoples’ present and future. Furthermore, there has been much less attention on “la longue durée” of memory and studies of collective memories’ resilience to fast changes. Thus, the purpose of this special issue is to fill this void. We are interested in the change in slow memory processes, for example, across the generations, in educational policies, media representations or public discourse. It is essential to consider the problematic “dark past” as well as slow transformations that bring improvements in people’s lives.

We invite the contributions that conceptualize slow memory and look from new angles at how societies and individuals remember the past. The regional focus is on Eastern, Central and South-Eastern Europe, but we are also interested in contributions providing comparisons across Europe or other regions worldwide. We welcome case studies as well as theoretical or methodological articles and essays about the memories of “slow changes”, in relation to such phenomena as for example

  • images and narratives (e.g., stereotypes of “the Others” or self-images of the own group as victims);
  • remembering the significant or extreme past events (e.g., WWII and the Holocaust, the era of communist regimes, and war in the former Yugoslavia);
  • deindustrialization;
  • changes in gender relations, intergenerational relations and others;
  • the hollowing out of welfare states;
  • gentrification;
  • climate change and environmental destruction;
  • the creeping rise of misinformation.

 

Authors can submit their abstracts and keywords no later than 31st March 2024 through the journal Slovak Ethnology editorial system.

Please send the final manuscripts by 31st July 2024 and submit them through the same editorial system. They should be at most 5,000 words or 36,000 characters, including spaces, notes, and references, and should follow the journal’s guidelines for contributors.

Latest Updates

Action members Sara Jones and Thomas Van de Putte have just published an essay titled “Following the well-trodden paths of the past”. Check it out via this link.  Abstract: The event-based focus of much memory studies scholarship appears to centre the field on ruptures, and yet theories of cultural memory also consider how those ruptures...

The Memory Studies Association invites proposals for its ninth annual conference, to be held from 14 to 18 July 2025 at Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences in the historic city of Prague. This on-site conference aims to carry over from earlier conferences a transdisciplinary conversation on memory and its social, cultural and public...

Call for Articles Slow Memory: The Transformative Promptings of Literature in Post-conflict Societies for a special issue of Memory Studies Review (2026)edited by Patrick Crowley and Gunnþórunn Guðmundsdóttir ‘I feel something quiver in me, shift, try to rise, something that seems to have been unanchored at a great depth; I do not know what it...

  Workshop: Walkability between the Past and Present   Organized by Diana Salahieh, Layla Zibar, Ph.D., Akshatha Ravi Kumar and doc. ing. arch. Irena Fialova  In collaboration with Prof. Kateřina Králová, from the Research Center for Memory Studies (RCMS) at Charles University  The event will take place in Prague from September 11-14, 2024, focusing on...

The second training school & third annual meeting for the “Slow Memory – Transformative Practices for Times of Uneven and Accelerated Change” COST action took place in Belgrade, Serbia during the last week of May 2024, at the Faculty of Media and Communications (FMK). We had 34 participants in the training school and 60 for...

Image 13: Part of the massive monument in Batina

Call for articles for the Special Issue  Slow Memory After Conflict: Fragments From the Post- Yugoslav Space  Editors: Orli Fridman and Vjeran Pavlakovic  Rationale  Inspired by the COST Action on Slow Memory, we are pleased to announce a call for papers to a special issue of the journal Southeastern Europe that will critically engage with...

We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Learn more