SYMPOSIUM: THINKING MEMORY THROUGH SPACE (GOLDSMITHS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON)

You are kindly invited to the interdisciplinary symposium:THINKING MEMORY THROUGH SPACE: MATERIALITY, REPRESENTATION, & IMAGINATIONJuly 11-12Room 309 Richard Hoggart Building, Goldsmiths University of London 9:30-18:00hsWhat does it mean to remember through space? Why is it important, or indeed necessary, to analyze memory and space conjointly? Is it possible to remember without or outside of space? This symposium aims to create a forum in which to discuss, analyze, and critically engage with the topic of post-violence memory and space. Paying close attention to the ways in which particular places and sites of violence are materially experienced, represented, and even imagined, the symposium seeks to literally 'think memory through space'.The two-day event will be organized around four central themes in which we will pair invited academic senior speakers with early career researchers in order to generate productive discussions about specific research projects and about broader theoretical concerns in analyses of memory.Organizing institutions:Goldsmiths University of London - Anthropology DepartmentSpanish National Research Council [CSIC] –Institute of Philosophy and Institute of Language, Literature and AnthropologySupported by:Marie Curie SPBuild Initial Training NetworkBosnian Bones, Spanish Ghosts, Goldsmiths College / European Research CouncilMore info: http://thinkingmemorythroughspace.blogspot.com.es/To book a place email: thinkingmemorythroughspace@gmail.comWe hope to see you there!--Thinking Memory Through Space is organized byZahira AragüetePamela ColomboLee Elisabeth DouglasMarije HristovaMail: thinkingmemorythroughspace@gmail.comWeb: …Continue

Tags: IMAGINATION, GOLDSMITHS, ZAHIRA, ARAGUETE, REPRESENTATION

Started by Safet Hadzimuhamedovic on Wednesday.

visual anthropology of landscapes?

So, I'm currently looking into the ways of making my research of Bosnian 'landscaped histories' more relevant to my interlocutors and generally less elitist. One of my ideas was to deposit my abundant iphonography from the field into a website. Any suggestions about the format? What would you do? Should I tell stories through images or images through stories? :) Any good examples of similar projects?Also, can all of you post discussions, and if you can why don't you? Bring some life into this group people!P.S. The image is one of many I took at Ajvatovica, a pilgrimage site in central Bosnia where tens of thousands of Muslims gather every July to journey through a miraculous passage. The legendary old man Ajvaz dedo fell asleep on top of the rock after praying to God for 40 days and 40 nights to bring water to his town. On the final night he dreamt of two rams colliding and woke up to see that the rock had split beneath him to make way for a stream of water. The pilgrimage was illegally continued throughout the Communist period and some of the contemporary political projects encroach upon the site.  The 'model' is one many horseback male 'envoys' sent from different towns. Women, who make up the majority of visitors, are left to walk the steep and very long mountain paths. Continue

Tags: Bosnia, ajvatovica, landscapes, anthropology, visual

Started by Safet Hadzimuhamedovic Dec 6, 2012.

Cfp: 'Listening landscapes, speaking memories', panel wmw10, IUAES Congress 2013 (paper proposals by July 13 2012)

Dear colleagues,Please consider proposing a paper for the panel Listening landscapes, speaking memories, part of the 17th World Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences which has the overall theme 'Evolving Humanity, Emerging Worlds'. The Congress is hosted by the University of Manchester (5 - 10 August 2013). Kindly note that, while there is more than a year until the conference, the deadline for papers is very, very close and all proposals should be submitted by July 13 2012.   For full details: http://www.nomadit.co.uk/iuaes/iuaes2013/panels.php5?PanelID=1668To propose a paper scroll down to end of the panel page and sign up/log in to nomadit. Congress website:http://www.iuaes2013.org/index.htmlThe panel is marked as WMW10 under the track ‘The world of the mind and the mind in the world’. Short AbstractWhat are the particular examples of listening and speaking landscapes and what do their memories convey? This panel invites ethnographic contributions to the research of landscapes as cultural processes important to the reflexive and shifting 'lives of memory'.Long AbstractCan landscapes listen? Can landscapes speak? What is their relationship with memory? Arguing for an 'Actor-Network Theory', Bruno Latour proposes that 'non-humans' may have an active role, and not be 'simply the hapless bearers of symbolic projection' (2005: 10). Are landscapes merely heuristic devices in processes of memory or their inextricable parts with certain levels of autonomy in human experience? Building primarily upon Cruikshank's (2005) explorations on Athapaskan and Tlinglit 'listening' glaciers, as well as the bulk of research in anthropological studies of space, place and landscape, this panel invites ethnographic contributions to understanding of non-human agency as it pertains to…Continue

Tags: Congress, 2013, IUAES, memory, anthropology

Started by Safet Hadzimuhamedovic Jun 14, 2012.

Romano dive, Ederlezi 1 Reply

On the eve of St George Day celebrations, Romani people gather at the Carica wellspring in Visoko to make wishes for the coming year. It is their day, Ederlezi or Đurđevdan, the beginning of a new season reincarnated through the mystic potency of Saint George, Saint Elijah and Prophet al-Khidr, the Green One, but, in the words of Hasiba, a Romani woman from Visoko, it is everyone's day and all Bosnians celebrate. This tradition, well known beyond the Mediterranean basin, is embedded into the earliest memories of the Bosnian Roma. Toponyms argue towards medieval sources, and while the many clues seem to indicate a strong link to the yet impalpable schismatic Bosnian Church, these seasonal rituals certainly have a prehistoric heritage.  Never was I welcomed as warmly as in this narrow passage of Carica bursting in greenery and fountains on both its sides and leading towards a grand field which spreads like an atrium to hold the merry congregation. Elderly attempt to keep up a pace with children in the mountaineering efforts to find the right branches of drijen (European Cornel) and žara/kopriva (nettle). Melina and Hasiba teach me to tie small red ribbons onto the unoccupied branches of drijen, repeating: 'I welcome health, forsake malady'. Each further ribbon imparts a well-defined wish for loved ones onto the thriving shrubs. Children run around stinging each other's legs with nettle leaves. Their games are sometimes interrupted by a quick visit to the spring, where they disappear into a crowd of women splashing their faces with water and throwing three driblets over their backs. For good luck... Young brides wanting to get pregnant gently lash themselves with sallow. I hear them rhyme: 'Ove godine s vrbom a dogodine s trbuhom', 'This year with sallow, and the next with a belly'.  After a short visit home, dusk is beginning to settle over the Romani neighborhoods on the hill of Križ, a synthesizer and…Continue

Tags: Bosnia, sacral, geography, Roma, Visoko

Started by Safet Hadzimuhamedovic. Last reply by Logan Sparks May 9, 2012.

Some interesting calligraphy from Bursa sent by Logan

by Logan Sparks on March 14, 2012 at 3:12pmUlu Camii, Bursa, 'waw'waw mandala'waw' mandala 2waw larger and smallermevlevi turbanHello Safet and All - I have linked several photos here for the group (not sure if there is another way to post them). They are taken inside the Ulu Camii in Bursa which was the main mosque for the Ottoman Sultans when the capital was in Bursa. I add these because there is an unusual motif of single letters in the mosque, the most common one being 'waw' most likely standing for the kuranic divine name 'al Wadud' (the Loving One). There are other letters such as Jim, but the preponderance of the letter waw might ahve to do with what you see in the final photo, another excpetion in mosque architecture: the turban of the Mevelvi dervish order…Continue

Started by Safet Hadzimuhamedovic Apr 26, 2012.

The story of Gernikako Arbola (the tree of Guernica)

On April 26, 1937 Nazi aeroplanes razed Guernica to the ground. However, one tree survived -the Gernikako Arbola (Euskari: the tree of Guernica). Since the XIV century it symbolised  freedom and history of the Basque region.This footage by PSOE TV shows Patxi López, the current lehendakari (President of the Basque Government), swearing in before the tree which holds a central place in their emotional geography. According to the Biscay General Assembly website, these are the words of José Antonio Agirre, the first Basque president from 1936, which are now repeated for every ceremony: Humbled before God on foot on Basque soil  in memory of our ancestors under the tree of Gernika before you representatives of the people I swear to faithfully carry out my duties.Continue

Tags: arbol, tree, drvo, Guernica, ceremony

Started by Safet Hadzimuhamedovic Apr 14, 2011.