The Call for Papers for the interdisciplinary conference "Hungary 1956 - 2016: Reverberations of a Revolution" has been extended to May 16th, 2016.
60 years ago a student demonstration in pursuit of liberty and democratic reforms in Hungary started a chain of events that turned into a nationwide revolt against the Soviet policies and control embodied in the government of the Hungarian People's Republic. The uprising that caught the attention and imagination of the world has been widely considered as the first major threat to Soviet control in Central Europe. Although the revolution failed at the time, its reverberations have been felt ever since, particularly in what is now considered the democratic transition in Central Europe, and the lives of diaspora communities around the world.
This interdisciplinary conference seeks to bring together scholars from any discipline in the social sciences, humanities and fine arts, who are interested in exploring the general theme of Hungary 60 years after the revolution. The organizers welcome academic papers that address social, political, cultural, historical and economic issues in contemporary Hungary, in particular those that investigate how such issues have been shaped or affected by the realities and/or the collective memory of the 1956 revolution. Questions to consider are many; some of the suggested topics of inquiry include:
- education and educational reform(s)
- women and politics, the role of women in Hungarian society
- gender and cultural politics
- NGOs, civil society and democratization
- minority issues, policies and politics of diversity - national identity, identity and culture, religious identity
- national identity and the politics of memory and commemoration
- refugee and diaspora memories
- citizenship and identity - architecture, space and memory, remembering through space
- street names and their meaning in national collective memory
- Art and remembering
- Hungarian media today, media and society, social media and civic engagement
- political engagement of youth
- sports
- crime and the criminal justice system
- international relations and Hungary's place in the world (perceived and actual)
We encourage presentations from all disciplines and fields of scholarship, including History, Political Science, Literature, Economics, Pedagogy, Art History, Religious Studies, Gender
Studies, etc. We are inviting submissions for both individual papers and pre-constituted panels for presentations. Abstracts should be a maximum of 250 words in length. In addition, please include a short biographical note (approximately 100 words). Presentations should be no more than 20 min in length. Selected papers will have the opportunity to be published. We welcome submissions from graduate students and early career scholars.
Please note that travel and accommodation subsidies are available to participants of this conference. Please notify us of your intention to request a travel subsidy in your submission.
Deadline for abstracts: May 16th, 2016
Notification of acceptance: on or around June 1st, 2016
Send in your submissions to: hungaryconference@gmail.com
The conference will take place at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada on October 26-29, 2016. Please note the language of the conference is English and we ask that you submit your abstract and bio in English.