Call for Papers: “Binding – Tangling – Confronting Cultural Relationships in Central Europe Through the Ages”
The Polish-Slovak Committee of Historians
at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Slovak Academy of Sciences
are pleased to invite you to the international conference
Binding – Tangling – Confronting
Cultural Relationships in Central Europe Through the Ages
Since the Middle Ages, Central Europe has been an area of coexistence, overlapping and confrontations between various cultures. Presuming that culture is relational, we would like to focus on this aspect of culture as key to understanding the versatile history of the macroregion in question.
The conference aims to revise the notions about relationships between different cultures, conceived as separate entities, and relationships within their dynamic inner structures. The conference also proposes to rethink the relational models employed in studying culture across epochs, from mediaeval through recent history. It sets out to revisit the issue of cultural boundaries on the macroscale along with the local, more familiar context of relationships, as well as the issue of how the experience of relationships influenced the worldview and endeavours of the people in the region in question.
We refer to the concept of relationship not only in the meaning it has gained thanks to twentieth-century linguistics, inspired by Ferdinand de Saussure (situational relationship, structure as the pattern of differences), but we are also interested in a relationship as a transcultural concept (Wolfgang Welsch and others), the relationship between the centre(s) and periphery (Ján Bakoš, František Novosád and others) and the current comparativist theories.
The chief fields of interest include:
- inter-cultural relationships and their aftermath in human actions and products;
- inner-cultural structures and relationships: conservatism and cosmopolitism; tradition and modernity; modernisations; state-generic power and localness; minorities etc.; international and inter-state cultural contacts: collaboration in politics, science, education, journalism, literature, art, music, theatre, and tourism; showcasing states to international audiences; state branding and propaganda; international exhibitions etc.;
- borderlands: the identity of microregions in light of the civilisational and political transformation, plebiscites and their imprint on culture etc.;
- polyvalent and hybrid communities and personalities;
- cultural relationships from the perspective of the European Christian heritage;
- localness and globalisation: macro-narrations and microhistories;
- the issue of methodology and didactics of history and culture in the Central European states.
We are also open to paper proposals beyond the abovementioned fields if they can contribute to widening the research perspective. We invite historians and historians of art, literature and culture who investigate Central Europe.
Applications with abstracts and short CVs should be submitted by 30 April 2023, to: aleksander.lupienko@ihpanstary.aionline.dev
Notification of acceptance will be sent by 31 May 2023.
The conference will be held at the Silesian Museum in Katowice on 7–9 November 2023.
A post-conference book is planned to be published. The conference languages are Polish, Slovakian and English.
Conference organisers:
- Polish-Slovak Committee of Historians at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences and the Slovak Academy of Sciences
- Silesian Museum in Katowice
Conference partners:
- Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences
- Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica
- Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Warsaw
