CCGES will be hosting the conference “The Past on Display – Museums, Film, Musealization” from April 28-30. 2011 and conference organizers would like to invite submissions for paper proposals to be given at the conference.
Both museums and films are now recognized in German Studies as key sites for the production of historical knowledge and the construction of cultural memory, but what they share in how they present the world remains largely unexplored by scholars. This conference focuses on the intersections between museum and film practices in German culture and seeks to deepen our understanding of past and present relationships between both media by exploring their commonalities and differences.
Even though traditionally their functions and practices may have been defined differently, visual media and the institution of the museum have always been closely linked and existed in dialectical and historical exchange with one
another. In last few decades, these exchanges between the media and their increasing convergence have often been captured in the relatively unexplored and under-theorized notion of ‘musealization’. As the museum and visual media respond to technologies that seem increasingly able to record and archive everything, to the effects of globalization, the growing commodification of memory, and changing modes of spectatorship, they have redefined their roles in the production of memory and historical knowledge, and, more and more, they share intellectual concerns and borrow techniques from each other. While museums turn to visual media to improve the visitor’s experience, the medium of film equally appropriates functions and techniques which have often been seen as the domain of the rarified world of the museum.
Using the notion of musealization, the conference aims to explore the intersections between the exhibition practices of the museum and the visual media in Germany. We invite proposals for papers that investigate this relationship between the museum and visual media and their contributions to history and memory discourses in German culture.
Possible aspects to explore include (but are in no way restricted to) an examination of both media’s approaches to:
– Changing attitudes of both media towards their function to educate, entertain and remember
– The effects of the museum environment and archival processes on the perception of visual material
– Theories of ‘musealization’: what is musealization and how should it be theorized?
– Historical intertwinings of museums and film: is “musealization” a “new” phenomenon?
– Film as curator, curation in the construction of films and institutions
– Approaches to materiality and temporality in museums and/or films
– How does German history impact film and museum relations? What is specifically German?
– Practices of looking and seeing in the process of knowledge production
– How do film and museums tell stories and relate the past using objects?
– The interplay of collections of objects and artifacts with the ephemeral nature of the moving image
– Relationships between matters of consumption, emotion and affect, and the use of visual media
– Questions of authenticity and spectatorship, ‘emotional realism’ as a concept in film and museum, respectively
– Questions of canonization, ‘master narratives’
– The perception of both museum and film as “curated reality”
– The relationship between the active spectator, visual material, and the ideologically marked environment of the museum
– Questions of target groups, the educational reach of the media, and the motivation of the visitor
The conference will take place April 28th-30th, 2011 at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is hosted by the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies at York University. We intend to publish an edited volume of essays based on selected conference presentations.
Please submit proposals (300 words) for 20-minute presentations to the conference organizers by September 30th, 2010. Presenters will be notified by the end of October. The conference languages will be English and German, abstracts and presentations in either language are welcome. With the submission of your proposal, please include information about your affiliation, contact details and a brief bio. Please submit your proposal electronically to:
Peter McIsaac
Associate Professor, German Studies
Director, Canadian Centre for German and European Studies, York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON
M3J 1P3
Canada
Tel: 416-736-2100 x 40089
Email: pmcisaac@yorku.ca
Gabriele Mueller
Associate Professor, German Studies
DLLL
York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON
M3J 1P3
Canada
Email: gmueller@yorku.ca
Please do not hesitate to contact the organizers with questions or if you require further information.
