Conference Program

To download all conference abstracts, click here.

Thursday, February 7, 2008 - Opening

8:00 – 8:15 pm - Opening remarks - William Hirst (NSSR, Psychology)
8:15 – 9:15 pm - Keynote Speaker: Dominick La Capra (Cornell University, Humanistic Studies)

Witnessing, Trauma, and the Sublime

Wolff Conference Room  (Co-sponsored by The New Sociological Imagination Series of the Sociology Department, NSSR)
Opening reception, Wolff Conference Room

Friday, February 8, 2008 – Thematic Panels:  
SESSION 1
9:00 – 10:45 am

Panel 1: Media & space
Wolff Conference Room
Moderator: Paul Goldberger (Parsons School of Design, Joseph Urban Professor of Design)

Presenters:
Chainmaking: a note on Ornament, Intelligence, and the New Signature Building / Robert Kirkbride (Parsons School of Design, Product Design)

Memories.ppt / Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer (Columbia University, English and Comparative Literature; Dartmouth, History)

The Space of Imagination / Barbie Zelizer (University of Pennsylvania, Communications)

Archiving Poetic Texts, Voices, Spaces: The Woodberry Poetry Room / Shannon Mattern (New School for General Studies, Media Studies)

The Mediatization of Memory / Andrew Hoskins (Warwick University, Sociology)

Panel 2: Silence
Machinist Conference Room
Moderator: Oz Frankel (New School for Social Research, History)                     
Presenters:                                                                 
The Sounds of Silence / Ross Poole (New School for Social Research, Political Science/Philosophy)

Entangled Histories and Lost Memories: Questions about Jewish Survivors and Defeated Germans in Occupied Germany 1945-1949 / Atina Grossmann (Cooper Union, History)   
                   
Blank Spots in History: Deep Memory for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in Russia / James V. Wertsch (Washington University, Anthropology)

The Future is History: Memory and Time in a Digital Age / Orit Halpern (New School for Social Research, History)
     
What’s Too Painful to Remember, We Simply Choose to Forget: Finding Comprehensive Truth in Literary Biography / Lisa Browar (New School for Social Research, Fogelman Library)                 

10:45 – 11:00 am - Coffee Break

SESSION 2
11:00 – 12:45 pm

Panel 1: Media/Space
Wolff Conference Room
Moderator: Jonathan Veitch, Cultural Studies; Dean, Eugene Lang College

Presenters:
Magical Geography: The Fluxus of Memory in Atomic Space / Lindsey Freeman (New School for Social Research, Sociology)

Virtual Memory: The Blog as Technological Prosthetic / Carlo Scannella (New School for General Studies, Media Studies)

Grafeneck Today: Learning from the Past; Teaching for the Future / Susanne C. Knittel (Columbia University, Comparative Literature)
 
Representation, Re-performance, and Repetition: A Temporal Stutter in Performance Discourse / T. Nikki Cesare (NYU, Performance Studies)

The Depopulated Palestinian Villages and the Israeli collective memory – the case of the Jewish National Fund / Noga Kadman (Gotheburg University, Sweden, Peace and Development Studies)

Panel 2: Silence
Machinist Conference Room
Moderator: Terri Gordon (New School for General Studies, Comparative Literature)

Presenters:
Bodies of Evidence: Remains, Memory and the Law / Sonali Thakkar (Columbia University, English and Comparative Literature) 

Inherited Guilt - The Confession of a Secret Agent’s Son in Peter Esterhazy’s "Corrected Version" / Aniko Szucs (NYU, Performance Studies)

A “Will to Happiness”: The Division Between ‘Memory’ and ‘Forgetting’ and the Understanding of Modern Subjectivity / Fiona Stewart (York University, Division of Humanities) 

Forgetting the dead: British protestant cemeteries in Alexandria, Egypt 1952-1972 / Shane E. Minkin (NYU, Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies and History)

Toward a typology of memories of conflicts / Georgios Antoniou (Yale University, McMillan Centre)

12:45 – 2:00 pm – Lunch Break

1:00- 2:00 - Dina Zempsky, Senior Coordinator at StoryCorps, will give a brief overview of the history and mission of StoryCorps, Wolff Conference Room

SESSION 3
2:00 – 3:45 pm

Panel 1: Power and Truth
Wolff Conference Room
Moderator: Dominick LaCapra (Cornell University, Humanistic Studies)

Presenters:
The Defense of the Nation: The 9/11 Commission Report as “History” / Robin Wagner-Pacifici (Swarthmore College, Sociology)

Against Memory: The Micropolitics of Forgetting as a Creative Act / Jeffrey Goldfarb (New School for Social Research, Sociology)

Historical Memory and Transitional Justice: Two Fields or One? / Louis Bickford (International Center for Transitional Justice/NYU, Political Science)

Why Truth Still Matters - Historical Clarification, Impunity and Justice in Contemporary Guatemala / Victoria Sanford (CUNY, Anthropology)

Memory, Consumerism and Kitsch / Marita Sturken (NYU, Media, Culture & Communication)

Panel 2: Identity
Machinist Conference Room
Moderator: Marianne Hirsch (Columbia University, English and Comparative Literature)

Presenters:
The Social Organization of Ancestry and Descent: A Case-Study in the Sociology of Memory / Eviatar Zerubavel (Rutgers University, Sociology)

Self in Time: Emergence within a Community of Minds / Katherine Nelson (CUNY, Psychology)

Memory, Empathy and the Politics of Identification / Alison Landsberg (George Mason University, Film and History)

Remembering and reminiscing: How individual lives are constructed in family narratives / Robin Fivush (Emory University, Psychology)

3:45 – 4:00 pm – Coffee Break

SESSION 4
4:00 – 5:45 pm

Panel 1: Power and Truth
Wolff Conference Room
Moderator: Noah Isenberg (Eugene Lang College, Literature)

Presenters:
Stalinism, Historiography and Memory. Russia’s dealing with the past / Christian Volk (RWTH Aachen University, Germany)

Are Museums Sites of Memory? Lorena Rivera-Orraca (New School for Social Research, Sociology)
 
Immigration Museums between Memory and Forgetfulness / Tamar Blickstein (Columbia University, Comparative Literature)

Afterlives of Anti-colonialism: A Model of (Post) historical Memory / Jennifer Wenzel (University of Michigan, English Language and Literature)

“Who Are We" Undisciplined Memories, Disputed Identities in the Eastern Black Sea Villages of Trabzon, Turkey / Nikolaos Michailidis (Princeton University)

Panel 2: Identity
Machinist Conference Room
Moderator: Vera Zolberg (New School for Social Research, Sociology)

Presenters:
Sebald’s Austerlitz: Identity Lost and Found, Photographs Read and Misread / Lauren Walsh (Columbia University, English and Comparative Literature)

Memory, History, and Religion: The Battle of Kosovo / Eli Krasniqi, (New School for Social Research, Sociology)

Haunted by the Past: A Conceptual Understanding of the Politics of Memory. Based on Postwar Italy and Slovenia / Peter J. Verovsek (Yale University, Political Science)

A Critical Analysis of Post-Unification German Film / Juliane Edler (York University, Political Science)

The Holy Jester: Martyrdom and Politics in Mexico / Marisol Lopez-Menendez (New School for Social Research, Sociology)

5:45 – 6:00 pm – Break

SESSION 5
6:00 – 7:45 pm

Panel 1: Trauma
Wolff Conference Room
Moderator: Richard McNally (Harvard University, Psychology)   

Presenters:                                                                 
How Memory for Stressful Events affects Identity / David Rubin (Duke University, Psychology & Neuroscience)

Against the Concept of Cultural Trauma or How I Learned to Love the Suffering of Others without the Help of Psychotherapy / Wulf Kansteiner (SUNY Binghamton, History)

Shattering Silence: Traumatic Memory and Reenactment in Rithy Panh's
"S21: The Kymer Rouge Killing Machine"/ Deirdre Boyle (New School for General Studies, Media Studies)

Working with Traumatic Memories in Psychotherapy / Michael E. Kramer (Manhattan Campus - NY VA Harbor Healthcare System, Psychology)

Dance and the Memory of Trauma / Carol Bernstein (Bryn Mawr College, English and Comparative Literature)

Panel 2: Trauma
Machinist Conference Room
Moderator: Elzbieta Matynia (The Transregional Center for Democratic Studies and New School for Social Research, Sociology)

Presenters:
A Procession of Shadows: Autobiography and Traumatic Memory / Mark Celinscak (York University, Division of Humanities)

A Public Privacy: Japanese Atomic-Bomb Survivor Paintings as Illustrated Diaries, and the Problems of Intention in Survivor Art / Maggie Mustard (Brown University)

Photography in the Mode of the Allegorical: Notes on Joel Meyerowitz at Ground Zero / Zachary Hooker (Columbia University, Anthropology)

Living in History: When (and Why) Historical Events Affect the Organization of Autobiographical Memory / Norman R. Brown (University of Alberta) , Tia Hansen (Aalborg University), Peter J. Lee (University of Alberta), Mirna Krslak (University of Alberta), Fredrick G. Conrad (University of Michigan), & Jelena Havelka (University of Kent)

The Economy of Commemoration. A Reading of the New Historical Museum in Yad-VaShem, Yael Dekel (NYU, Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature)

Panel 3: Theory
Room 211
Moderator: Sarah Daynes, (New School for Social Research, Sociology)

Presenters:
Collective Forgetting: Reflections on a Residual Expression, Ben Herzog (Yale University, Sociology)

Why is memory such a sexy notion for anthropologists? David Berliner (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Cultural Anthropology)

Memory’s Reconciliation with Reality, Uri Jacob Matatyaou (Northwestern University, Political Science)

Memory and International Relations: In Search for a New Research Agenda / Maria Mälksoo (University of Cambridge, and International Centre for Defence Studies, Estonia, International Studies)

The Expelled: Cultural Memory and the Constitution of the Human World / Thomas M. Krell (New School for Social Research, Philosophy) 

Memory-truths in Politics: towards an Interactive Theory of Collective Memory / Onur Bakiner (Yale University, Political Science)

7:40 – 7:45 pm – Break

7:45 – 8:45 pm - Keynote Speaker: Richard McNally (Harvard, Psychology)
Wolff Conference Room

Resolving the Recovered Memory Debate

8:45 – 9:30 Reception
Wolff Conference Room

Day 3 (Saturday, February 9, 2008) - Is an interdisciplinary field of memory possible?

SESSION 1
9:00 – 10:35 am

Panel: The Individual
Wolff Conference Room
Discussant: William Hirst (NSSR, Psychology)

Presenters:
Forgetting Trauma: Applying Socially-Shared Retrieval-Induced Forgetting to the Study of Memory and Trauma / Adam Brown (NSSR, Clinical Psychology)

Forgetting the unforgettable through conversations / Alin Coman (NSSR, Experimental Psychology)

This Land is Our Land: Property as a Symbol of Group Identity / Alison Ledgerwood (NYU, Social Psychology)

The formation of a memory trace in the brain / Bernhard Staresina (NYU, Cognition and Perception)

Memory, Magical Ideation, and Absorption in Individuals Reporting Past Life Memory Experiences / Cynthia A. Meyersburg (Harvard University), David Gallo (University of Chicago), & Richard J. McNally (Harvard University)

10:20 – 10:30 am – Coffee break

SESSION 2
10:40 – 12:15 pm

Panel: The Collective
Wolff Conference Room
Discussant: Jeffery Olick (University of Virginia, Sociology)

Presenters:
Above and Under: Articulating Feeling and Verbalizing Sense at the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin / Irit Dekel (NSSR, Sociology)

Construction of the Soviet past and Definition of the Nation in History Books of Post-Soviet Latvia / Maija Andersone (NSSR, Sociology)

Between Memories of Past and Present: The Time and Space of Social Change / Yifat Gutman (NSSR, Sociology)

Memory for the Future: Moral Education at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum / Amy Sodaro (NSSR, Sociology) 

12:15 – 1:00 pm – Lunch Break

12:15 – 1:00 pm - Artist Talk moderated by Robert Kirkbride (Parsons, Product design)

SESSION 3
1:00 – 2:35 pm

Panel: The In-Between
Wolff Conference Room
Discussant: Ross Poole (New School for Social Research, Philosophy/Political Science)

Presenters:
Phenomenology and Collective Memory / Rafael Narvaez (NSSR, Sociology)   
Fetishism and the  Memory of the Holocaust in Israeli History / Hadas Cohen (NSSR, Political Science)

Memory’s Irreverent Stain – Family, Nation and Blood in the writing of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha / Sandra Jae Song, PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology, University of Alberta

Beyond Remembrance and Forgetfulness, Between Self and Other / Roy Ben-Shai (NSSR, Philosophy)

2:35 – 2:40 pm – Break

2:40 – 3:10 pm - Andrew Hoskins, Editor of Memory Studies, talks about the new interdisciplinary journal by Sage, Wolff Conference Room

SESSION 4
3:15- 5:00 pm

Concluding panel: Synthesis
Wolff Conference Room
Moderator: Daniel Levy (SUNY Stony Brook, Sociology)

Presenters:
Jeffery Olick (University of Virginia, Sociology and History)
William Hirst (NSSR, Psychology)
Barbie Zelizer (University of Pennsylvania, Communications)
Robin Wagner Pacifici (Swarthmore College, Sociology)

Respondents:
Ann-Louise Shapiro (NSGS, History)
Eviatar Zerubavel (Rutgers University, Sociology)

5- 6 pm Closing Reception
Wolff Conference Room

To download all conference abstracts, click here.