Conference: "Unofficial Histories" 15-16 junio, Manchester (Reino Unido)

Unofficial Histories

Saturday 15th june & sunday 16th june manchester, UK

Unofficial Histories is a public conference to discuss how society produces, presents, and consumes history beyond official and elite versions of the past.
Call for Participation -

The Unofficial Histories conference seeks to bring together those who wish to consider the value and purpose of historical engagements and understandings that take place within, on the edges of, or outside “official” sites that produce and transmit historical knowledge and ideas.

After a successful first conference at Bishopsgate Institute, London, in May 2012, Unofficial Histories moves north to Manchester, and this time we’re making a weekend of it:

Saturday 15th June 2013 will be a day of papers, presentations and debate at Manchester Metropolitan University, Oxford Road, Manchester.

Sunday 16th June 2013 will be a relaxed day of informal activities exploring the theme of ’Unofficial Histories’ (details TBC).

We now invite presentation proposals for the meeting on Saturday 15th June 2013 to be held at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Taking its cue from the assumption that history is, as Raphael Samuel put it, “a social form of knowledge; the work, in any given instance of a thousand different hands”, the conference aims to open up to examination the ways in which historians, curators, writers, journalists, artists, film makers, activists and others, seek to represent the past in the public realm, spheres of popular culture and everyday life.

What subjects, ideas and themes are presented? What styles and mediums are used? How is this history produced, transmitted and consumed? Who is producing and consuming it, and why?

We hope to sharpen the awareness of the different sites and forms of historical production and consider how they impact public perceptions and consciousness of history. We are also concerned to understand the interactions between competing and replique montre corresponding impulses in history-making: the scholarly and the political; the academic and the everyday; the imperatives of funding, sustainability, ethics and access.

Finally, we would like to consider whether or not such “unofficial histories” have political effects that might serve democratic and emancipatory goals, and/or can be seen as sources of dissent and resistance against conventional, privileged models of historical knowledge.

Presentations of 20 minutes (different approaches to communication are encouraged) are welcomed on any aspect of the above, which may include:

People’s History & the History of Everyday Life
TV, Radio and Internet
Literature, Poetry, Music and Folksong
Museums, Heritage and Archives
Feminist , Women’s and Gender History
Historical Re-enactment and Living History
Memory, Myth and Folklore
Class, Culture and Ethnicities
Art, Drama and Theatre
Family History and Genealogy
Oral History, Testimony, and Biography
Local, Regional and Community History
The Role of the Historian
History Education, Teaching and Curricula
Uses and Abuses of History

Please submit abstracts of 250-300 words by Wednesday 20th February 2013 to Fiona Cosson, email f.cosson@mmu.ac.uk .