Wolfson
College, Oxford, 12-13 September 2016
This two-day
conference invites submissions for 20-minute papers that engage with a specific
definition of ‘sub-cultures’ (see below)
through case studies drawn from the East-Central European region, over the
period c. 1900-present
Funding is
available for travel and accommodation in Oxford for accepted submissions, with
details to follow. Participants may be invited to contribute to a summative
volume or special edition on the titular subject.
Deadline for
proposals: 1 June 2016
Interrogating
the notion of ‘identity’ remains a central concern in Humanities and Social
Sciences research. For East-Central Europe, the subject has particular
resonance: this was a region forged in diversity, remade after 1945 along
ethno-national lines, and which in the present, continues to resist alternative
narratives.
The
conference concludes a four-year research project that proposes a new
definition of the term ‘sub-cultures’ to understand identities that do not
conform to the fixed, standard categories imposed from the top down, such as
‘ethnic group’, ‘majority’ or ‘minority’. Instead, a ‘sub-culture’ is an
identity that sits between these categories. It may blend languages, e.g.
dialect forms, cultural traditions, or ethnic identifications. It may be drawn
on particular conceptions of race and biology that, similarly, sit outside
national projects, or else in the interstices. In short, a ‘sub-culture’ in
these terms is not ‘subaltern’, but is an identity resisting complete
incorporation into the standard categories of ‘majority’ and’minority’. The
region offers many examples of such identities: among working-class inhabitants
of Lodz or Lviv in the early 20th Century, with their mixed dialect
practice; Germans who lived in Wroclaw after the city became Polish in 1945,
with their blended tradition and mixed identifications.
A full
definition of the term and a working case study can be found in the article by
Robert Pyrah and Jan Fellerer, ‘Redefining ‘sub-culture’: a new lens for
understanding hybrid cultural identities in East-Central Europe with a case
study from early 20th century L'viv-Lwów-Lemberg’, Nations and Nationalism,
Volume
21, Issue 4, pp. 700–20, October 2015. DOI:
10.1111/nana.12119. Further information on the project, the concept, and
its evolution may also be found on the dedicated website: http://subcultures.mml.ox.ac.uk.
To help
participants select their topics, we propose a number of governing themes,
which may cut across disciplines:
- Uses of history, memory,
myth and tradition;
- Ritual practice, religion
and religious observance;
- Minority policies ‘from above’
- Subjective experiences
among groups / populations ‘from below’
- Linguistic forms and practice
- Biology and essentialism
Submissions: please include your name, title, the title of
your presentation, and a short abstract (up to c. 500 words) to the address:
subculturesoxford[AT]gmail.com
