Mapping Memory:Embodied Testimonies of Trauma and Resistance

deadline for submissions: 
February 28, 2025
full name / name of organization: 
The Literature, Media, and Culture Program & Graduate Literature Organization at Florida State University

The body functions as an active agent in generating knowledge, memory, and stories. This year's conference places the relationship between memory and the body at its core, emphasizing how the latter serves as a site of cultural, political, and historical negotiation. The body exerts significant influence on the creation and retrieval of memory, compelling us to critically examine the individual and collective memories produced and transmitted through the embodied experiences of culture, politics, trauma, and (post)nation.

Since memory and knowledge production are so often contoured by systems of power, we would like to critically situate the body and its infinite modes of generation within the oppressive matrices and ecosystems that define its existence. Although the body holds and bears witness to countless traumas, it simultaneously possesses the potential to resist and subvert such violence through acts of embodied testimony. Drawing on J. Edward Mallot’s concept of “body memory,” which highlights the integration of physical and psychological dimensions of memory, we posit that this merging is essential to processes of healing and survival. Our interest in embodied memory stems from our belief that individual bodies can intervene in and reshape our collective memories of the past in new and insightful ways.

Our conference seeks to explore this topic through diverse disciplinary lenses, inviting scholars, artists, and practitioners to critically examine the body’s role in shaping and transmitting memory. Together, we aim to uncover how embodied practices create narratives that challenge dominant histories, connect fragmented identities, and imagine more inclusive futures. We welcome abstracts that address (but are not limited to) the following topics:

  • Myth and Narrative
  • Biopower and Governance
  • Neoliberalization
  • Memory and Postmemory
  • Gender
  • Embodiment
  • Systems of power
  • Race and Post-colonialism
  • National Memory and Forgetting

Abstracts should be submitted to the following link: https://forms.gle/2ZEXp1vpgXtwYimS6 by February 28, 2025. If you have any questions, please feel free to direct them to fsulmcgradconference@gmail.com.