Labnet: CfP: Writing East German History: What Difference Does the Cultural Turn Make? - University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 12/08

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[Cross-posted, with thanks, from H-Soz-u-Kult. AB]

From:    Uta Andrea Balbier <balbier at ghi-dc.org>
Date:    29.02.2008
Subject: CFP: Writing East German History: What Difference Does the
Cultural Turn Make? - University of Michigan, AnnArbor 12/08
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Geoff Eley, University of Michigan
Uta A. Balbier, German Historical Institute, Washington D.C.
Benita Blessing, Ohio University
Heather Gumbert, Virginia Tech University 
Eli Rubin, Western Michigan University
05.12.2008-06.12.2008, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Deadline: 15.04.2008

Call for Papers

"Writing East German History: What Difference Does the Cultural Turn
Make?"

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
December 5-6, 2008

In recent years, research on the GDR has profoundly changed. Junior
scholars in the US and in Europe have begun to analyze popular
experience and daily life to gain a deeper understanding of the East
German polity. This cultural turn might have a special impact on the
historiography of a society in which "culture" in all senses of the term
was deeply influenced by the state's understanding of socialism. The
question whether there is any viable distinction between "culture" and
"politics" in the analysis of the GDR challenges our understanding of
state, society, and culture of the GDR. 

In North America, scholarship on the GDR has been marked by an openness
to interdisciplinary approaches drawing on the social sciences and
cultural studies. A parallel development has taken place in Europe,
where GDR researchers have employed insights and approaches from media
studies, discourse analysis, and transnational history. 

This workshop seeks to illuminate these questions and to foster, a
transatlantic dialogue on the cultural turn in GDR history. The
conference aims to distinguish the different schools in GDR history on
both sides of the Atlantic as well as to overcome national
historiographical boundaries. Papers dealing with gender, race,
sexuality, material or corporate culture, spatiality, visual culture,
transnationality, semiotics, education, the body and sports, the making
of collective memory, are welcomed. The conveners are seeking for papers
with outstanding theoretical and methodological reflections. This event
will be a one-day workshop with pre-circulated position papers. 

Abstracts (1 page max.) should be submitted via e-mail along with a
short C.V. by April 15, 2008 to eli.rubin at wmich.edu or
balbier at ghi-dc.org. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Uta A.  Balbier

German Historical Institute, Washington D.C.
1607 New Hampshire Ave. NW, 
Washington DC 20009 
USA

balbier at ghi-dc.org

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