17.–18. října 2024, Ústí nad Labem
Registrovat se
Welcome to the website of the Public History platform, which creates a space for discussion about our relationship to the past. Since 2018, we have been organising every two years an international and interdisciplinary public history a convention for all those working on the topic of the past.
History has always been in close contact with the present. It breaks into the present both unexpectedly and imperceptibly, providing fodder for ideas about the future and sometimes legitimising our decisions. The ways in which societies use the past therefore require ongoing reflection. Representatives of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, the Faculty of Arts of Jan Evangelista Purkyně University, the Institute of History of the CAS, the Institute for Contemporary History of the CAS, the National Museum and the non-profit organization Anticomplex form a platform that provides an opportunity for interdisciplinary discussion at regular intervals, including a wide range of approaches and experiences that touch on the issue of making history visible in public space.
The fourth edition of the conference will take place on 17 and 18 October 2024 at the Multifunctional Information and Education Centre and the Faculty of Arts of the J. E. Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic, and will focus on the theme Memory under Pressure.
Memory does not exist without conflicts, different perspectives and constant changes. Currently, it is affected by a number of influences: we are experiencing armed conflicts and cultural wars, and we are also becoming more sensitive to the traces of the past in the landscape in the context of environmental changes. The fourth edition of the Public History Forum will bring two days of discussions on how the relationship to the past is changing in the Czech and European context. The war against Ukraine, artificial intelligence, new museum exhibitions, historical education, popular culture, controversial monuments, almost invisible traces of the past, the memory of minorities or practical experiences with the implementation of projects in the field of memory are just some of the areas we will be focusing on. On 17 and 18 October 2024, Ústí nad Labem will be the epicentre of discussions on history in public space. The meeting is open to all those who professionally deal with the past, both in and out of academia.
KEYNOTE LECTURE: ANDREW HOSKINS
Thursday 17 October, 10:15 – 11:45, Multifunctional Information and Education Centre – The Green Auditorium, J. E. Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem, Pasteurova 3544/1, Ústí nad Labem 400 01, Czech Republic
Forgetting the most documented war in history. There is a new digital war over memory
Since the mid-2010s, a transformational memory boom has been unfolding, at astonishing speed and on an astonishing scale. This is the memory boom of and around the self. Never has the individual produced and shared so much information about themselves and their experiences. And the millions of messages, images and video, pouring out of smartphones, surely makes the 2022 Russian war against Ukraine, the most documented and the most personalised war in history. Soldiers, civilians, journalists, victims, aid workers, presidents, journalists, are all recording and uploading their experience and vision of events second by second, tracking every twist and turn. The battlefield seems open to all. But this is no panacea for either understanding or remembrance. Instead, social media make war and memory in their own image, through the siege for attention, disinformation and splintered realities; choose your own feed, select your own memory. I ask what kind of memory and history might – or might not – emerge from the Russian-Ukrainian war? Who will secure its past and how?
PROGRAMME
THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2024
9:00 Registration and morning coffee
10:00 Opening of the conference by representatives of the organizing organizations
10:15 – 11:45 Keynote Andrew Hoskins: Forgetting the best documented war in history: the new war on memory
11:45 – 13:00 Lunch break
13:00 – 14:15 Block I
Panel I: Controversies over memory (moderated by Jitka Gelnarová)
Memory is a subject of dispute. Different images of events, personalities, places or phenomena associated with the past compete with different intensity and at different levels – at the level of families, communities and political communities. Conflicts over the past are linked to conflicts over the present, as are efforts to contain them; in the public sphere, the past becomes part of culture wars and political struggles. In this panel, we explore the conflictual potential of memory through specific examples.
Panel II: Transformations of Memory (moderated by Čeněk Pýcha)
Although more traditional conceptions of historical memory have also worked with the transformations of the stories of the places, characters and other objects we remember, the dynamics of the processes are crucial for current approaches to memory. This depends on the transformations of the media environment in which we negotiate our memory, but also, of course, on the social and political ruptures we face. What images of the past dominate this complex process? What role can narratives about past times still play?
Panel III: Complicated Histories in Museums (moderated by Tereza Štěpková)
It is no coincidence that historical museums and exhibitions are regularly given a lot of space in our conference and expert debates. The dynamics expressed by the number of newly opened or reconstructed exhibitions in the Czech Republic and abroad shows that this is an important medium of memory. In this panel we will focus on analyses of exhibitions that relate historical stories that are difficult to tell because of their tragic or conflictual dimension.
14:15 – 14:45 Coffee Break
14:45 – 16:15 Block II
Panel IV: Historical Education and Controversies over Memory (moderated by Josef Märc)
The conference traditionally includes a session on historical education, which cannot be separated from the transformation of memory. What are the disputes about historical education? Does history education also have its centres and edges? We invite all those interested in linking history in public space with history teaching to join the discussion.
Master class: Andrew Hoskins – Digital Memory Studies
In this masterclass, I explore the value of interdisciplinary work in Digital Memory Studies in rendering intelligible the ongoing transformations in media and technologies in shaping how, why and by who, individual, cultural, and social pasts are being reimagined and remade as well as decayed and lost. To this end, I draw on almost 30 years researching the relationship between media and memory, including most recently, on how what memory is and what memory does is increasingly determined by the agents, technologies, and processes of societies that are awash with data.
18:00 Discussion evening: Video games and history (moderated by Čeněk Pýcha), Museum in Ústí nad Labem
FRIDAY 18 OCTOBER 2024
8:30 Morning coffee
9:00 – 10:15 Block III
Panel V: In/visible memory (moderated by Václav Sixta)
While monuments, for example, are among the visible manifestations of memory, there are places and stories that are not so visible. In this panel, we will focus on the less common traces of memory and what it means to bring them into the light. Architecture, museum artifacts, stories, or memory practices can form transferable case studies for other areas of memory.
Panel VI: The Politics of Memory (moderated by Vojtěch Ripka)
The Politics of Memory panel will explore the ways in which historical events and their interpretations are shaped, maintained and transmitted within Czech society, with a particular emphasis on the thematization of minorities, majorities and power relations. The discussion will explore how memory institutions and cultural expressions reflect and shape the power dynamics between minorities and majority societies and how these relations influence the interpretation of key historical events such as the Holocaust, the Iron Curtain period, and Czech-German relations after 1945. This panel will offer an interdisciplinary perspective on the politics of memory and its influence on the formation of national identity and public discourse.
10:15 – 10:45 Coffee Break
10:45 – 12:15 Block IV
Panel VII: Landscape and Memory (moderated by Kamil Činátl)
Memory is often most visibly manifested in the landscape: monuments, architecture, abandoned villages, decayed industrial buildings or street names are among the most common manifestations of this phenomenon. Moreover, the possibility of associating an image of the past with a specific place on a map makes historical topics accessible to a public that is not normally interested in history. This can also apply to phenomena as complex as climate change. In this panel we will look at specific case studies that show how traces of the past can be worked with in the landscape.
Panel VIII: Wars and Memory (moderated by Jaroslav Šebek)
Wars are historically one of the most important impulses for the transformation of memory. Conflicts dynamise the transformation of narratives and technologies that co-create memory. The panel will focus in particular on the current war in Ukraine and how it affects the ideas about the past that circulate in the Czech public space. Although this is still an ongoing process, we believe that the conference can offer a space for at least provisional scholarly reflection on it.
12:15 – 12:30 Coffee Break
12:30 – 13:45 Block V
Roundtable: Through the Terrain of Memory (moderated by Filip Liška)
Panel IX: Socialist Dictatorships and Memory (moderated by Renata Berkyová)
In societies that have experienced socialist dictatorships, the memory of these regimes is one of the important societal issues that link the past with the present and stimulate research in the field of contemporary history and memory studies. This year’s conference will therefore also give space to these topics. How did the formerly privileged forms of memory come to the brink of oblivion after 1989 and how can we deal with them today? How is the memory of socialism mediated by digital media or museum exhibitions? We will seek answers to these and other questions in this panel.
14:00 Closing of the conference
PUBLICATIONS
The conference is also followed by academic and popular publications. Here you can find an overview of publications related to past editions of the conference.
CONTACTS
Head of the organizational team
Institute for Contemporary History of the CAS, v. v. i.
macourkova@usd.cas.cz
Head of the Programme Committee
Faculty of Arts, Charles University
vaclav.sixta@ff.cuni.cz