Working Group on Space-lore and Place-lore
The WG announces a CfP for the Lost Places and Abandoned Landscapes conference taking place from 29th-30th October 2024 in Szeged, Hungary. Deadline is 1st July.
Call for Papers
“Lost Places and Abandoned Landscapes”
29th -30th October 2024; Szeged, Hungary
Deadline for submissions: 1st July 2024
University of Szeged
Cultural landscapes across the globe have experienced rapid and profound transformations. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, economic, political and climatic shifts have compelled various communities to leave their homelands and adapt to new environments. As a result, numerous areas have been depopulated and, local landscape management and practices vanished. Economic downturns and political upheavals have led to the closure of mining sites and industrial centres, as well as military spaces. Our focus is on the phenomena of abandonment and disappearance. We are interested in researching residual elements, both tangible and intangible as well as in histories of abandonment and in practices of re-presenting the past.
We invite scholars from diverse disciplines such as ethnology, anthropology, folklore, history, art history, geography, ecology, and beyond. We seek contributions interested in lost places and abandoned landscapes including:
- heritagization, memorialization and ritualization strategies of and in abandoned places and landscapes
- socio-economic and environmental factors behind the abandonment, the effects to bio- and cultural diversity
- abandoned places and landscapes as tourist attractions
- phenomenological questions of abandoned landscapes
- nature conservation and rewilding practices, adaptation of traditional landscape management
- newcomers and their cultural practices in abandoned landscapes
- wartime and postwar landscapes – abandonment and rediscovery
- images and visualization of abandoned places and landscapes
Further details:
Applications (name, institution, title of the presentation, abstract) should be submitted by 1st July 2024 to László Mód (modlaci(at)gmail.com)
Length of papers: 20 minutes of presentation, to be followed by 10 minutes of discussion. Participants are required to cover their own travel and accommodation costs. We cover conference meals (one lunch and one dinner) and excursion.
Information on accommodation in Szeged may be found at the following link: Booking.com.
The organisers reserve the right to accept or reject papers submitted. We are planning to publish the papers.
Organizers: László Mód (Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Szeged); Karolína Pauknerová (Centre for Theorethical Study, Charles University Prague) and Alice Bower (University of Iceland)
Organized by Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Univerity of Szeged; SIEF Working Group Space-lore and Place-lore; Holocaust Memorial Center; Hungarian Ethnographic Society
Funded by: Cultural Foundation of Szeged, Solymossy Sándor Association
