Call for papers

Ways of Worldmaking: Narratives, Archives and Media
30 July – 4 August, 2007

The term ‘ways of worldmaking’ (N. Goodman) is deployed as part of a claim that the world we know is always already made from other worlds. There is no such thing as a given world – the only thing we can ever have access to is culturally shaped world versions. Recent years have seen an increasing interest across all disciplines in the question of exactly how worlds are made and how the relation between worldmaking and orders of knowledge can be described. Useful concepts for exploring this question, which have come to the forefront of research, are the notion of narrative, archives and media. The 2007 European Summer School will focus on these three key concepts as a starting point for for exploring ways of worldmaking: 

Narratives

For the ways in which we make sense of the world and our experiences, narrative structures are of fundamental importance. Narratives are at work in processes such as identity formation, ordering experiences, remembering and negotiating values. Although narration can be viewed as universal practice, the way narratives are formed is culturally and historically variable. It is this socio-historical dimension of narrativity which participants are asked to explore in particular. Possible topics for papers include narrative and cultural identity, narrative as a means of negotiating knowledge, narrative and memory, narrative and genre, narrative as a travelling concept across various disciplines.

Archives

The concept of archive has been productively used in the past to describe and analyse how knowledge is stored and organized within a culture. Archives are constantly drawn upon to negotiate meaning in everyday lives as well as in all media. Both the concept itself and the question of how archives are organized and function is still open to debate. We invite papers on issues such as archives and cultural knowledge, archives and intertextuality or archives and memory.

Media

Media do not only provide a means of communication, but they also shape cultural processes and our understanding of reality. Given the fundamental impact media have on ways of worldmaking, the question of what a medium is and how medial forms structure reality constitutes a central research area in a variety of disciplines. We invite papers to address issues such as media and reality, media and narrativity, media and cultural knowledge, concepts of media and how they travel between various disciplines.

The above listed topics do not form an exhaustive list – papers on related issues are also welcome. One central aim of the summer school is to illuminate the various interrelationships between narrative, archives and media with regard to worldmaking. Methodologically, the summer school will place a focus on the transfer of concepts and approaches between different disciplines, thus opening up trans-disciplinary negotiations.