The European Conference on Arts and Humanities 2017 (ECAH2017)

Join us in Brighton this summer for The European Conference on Arts and Humanities 2017 (ECAH2017), July 11-12, 2017. ***ECAH2017 at a glance The European Conference on Arts and Humanities 2017 (ECAH2017) will be held alongside The European Conference on Media, Communication and Film (EuroMedia2017) in the cosmopolitan and culturally rich city of Brighton, UK. Submit your abstract now to participate in this international, interdisciplinary and intercultural event. **Location: The Jurys Inn Brighton Waterfront, Brighton, UK **Dates: Tuesday, July 11 to Wednesday, July 12, 2017 **Final Abstract Submission Deadline: April 28, 2017 **Early Bird Registration Deadline: March 30, 2017 **Enquiries: ecah@iafor.org SUBMIT AN ABSTRACT: iafor.org/ecah2017-call-for-papers Already had your abstract accepted? Register now: iafor.org/ecah2017-registration To find out more about registration packages, presentation options, conference events and more, please visit the conference website: ecah.iafor.org ------------- ***ECAH2017 Conference Theme: "History, Story, Narrative" Historians are far from the only interested party in writing history. In a sense it is an interest we all share – whether we are talking politics, region, family birthright, or even personal experience. We are both spectators to the process of history while being intimately situated within its impact and formations. How, then, best to write it? Is it always the victor's version? Have we not begun increasingly to write "history from below," that lived by those who are not at the top of the power hierarchy? Are accounts of history always gender-inflected, hitherto at least men rather than women? Who gets to tell history if the issue is colonialism or class? How does geography, the power of place, intersect with history? What is the status of the personal story or narrative within the larger frame of events? This conference addresses issues of writing history from literary and other discursive perspectives. That is to say: novels, plays, poems, autobiography, memoir, diary, travel log, and a variety of styles of essay. One thinks of Shakespeare's history plays, Tolstoy's War and Peace, Shi Nai'an's The Water Margin, Balzac's La Comédie Humaine. It also addresses oral history, the spoken account or witness, Hiroshima survivor to modern Syrian migrant Which also connects to the nexus of media and history. The great "historical" films continue to hold us, be it Eisenstein's October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1925) or Gone with the Wind (1940). We live in an age of documentaries, whether film or TV. There is a view that we also inhabit "instant" history, the download to laptop, the app, the all-purpose mobile. How has this technology changed our perception, our lived experience, of history? What is the role of commemoration, parade, holiday, festival, or statuary, in the writing of history? The different modes by which we see and understand history, flow and counter-flow, nevertheless come back to certain basics. One asks whether we deceive ourselves in always asking for some grand narrative. Can there only be one narrator or is history of necessity a colloquium, contested ground? Is national history a myth? And history-writing itself: is it actually a form of fiction, an artifice which flatters to deceive? What, exactly, is a historical fact? This conference, we hope, will address these perspectives and others which connect and arise. In conjunction with our global partners, we look forward to extending a warm welcome to you in Brighton. – The ECAH2017 Organising Committee (iafor.org/ECAH2017-committee) ------------- ***Programme **Featured Panel Presentation: The Challenges of Doing Research and Creative Activity in the Arts and Humanities Today Professor Donald E. Hall and Professor Anne Boddington Given the rise of anti-intellectualism and increasing emphasis on technical and skills-based education, 2017 and beyond will prove particularly challenging times for those of us working in the arts and humanities. Our panellists will each speak for five to ten minutes about the broad political constraints on their work, as well as their respective national and institutional contexts of funding and prioritisation. This will be followed by a general discussion with the audience about collective experiences and strategies for individual and collective response to the challenges that we face. **Featured Presentation: Mythologizing One's Own History Through Narrative: Francis Coppola's Tetro Dr Rodney F. Hill, Hofstra University, USA Since 2007, Francis Coppola has been pursuing a more independent, low-budget mode of filmmaking, and the results have been some of the most personal films of his career. Tetro (2009), Coppola's first film from an original screenplay since 1974, centres on the troubled relationships between two estranged brothers – both aspiring playwrights – and their brilliant but emotionally crippling father, a famous orchestra conductor. Key aspects of the narrative are drawn from Coppola's own family history, but only loosely so, and in transposing these conflicts into fiction, Coppola symbolises them, indeed mythologises them, into a drama of Greek proportions. In its stylistic blend of realism and artifice, combined with its narrative focus on dramatic writing, the film calls attention to its own theatricality and process of narration. **Spotlight Presentation: Water Protectors or Protesters: Examining Media Coverage of the Dakota Pipeline Protests Dr Kimberly Cowden, Colorado State University – Pueblo, USA The Standing Rock Sioux reservation is located about an hour south of North Dakota's capital city, Bismarck. The reservation extends into South Dakota. Since April of 2016, members of the Standing Rock Sioux nation have established a camp, the Sacred Stone Camp, to protest the Dakota Access pipeline project that will cross the Missouri river on tribal lands. What started out as a few "water protectors" bloomed into thousands of visitors showing support from every part of the globe, largely due to social media. This movement has illuminated the issues of water protection, our reliance on fossil fuels, environmental implications of carbon footprints, indigenous rights and the historical and present issues of treaty compliance and respect by the dominant culture for native peoples. The protests have created an international forum for indigenous rights and sovereignty. The purpose of this study is to examine print media coverage of the Standing Rock protests (also known as #NoDAPL) from the inception of the Sacred Stone camp, located on reservation lands in Cannonball, North Dakota, through November 2016. It is important to examine how mainstream media versus Native American media portrays the activists for dissemination. This study asks: in what ways does mainstream reporting differ from a Native American-centered media regarding coverage of the Dakota Pipeline protest. Further programming will be announced in the coming weeks and months. ------------- ***IAFOR's Grants and Scholarships For information about IAFOR's new grants and scholarships for PhD students and early career academics, please visit: www.iafor.org/ecah2017-financial-support ------------- ***IAFOR Publishing Opportunities **Peer-reviewed journal: IAFOR Journal of Arts and Humanities The IAFOR Journal of Arts and Humanities (joah.iafor.org) is an editorially independent journal associated with ECAH2017. The editor of the journal will select the strongest papers from associated conference proceedings for consideration. This Open Access journal, which conforms to the highest academic standards, reflects the interdisciplinary and international nature of our conferences. **Conference Proceedings After having your abstract accepted and presenting your research at the conference, you are encouraged to submit a full paper for inclusion in the official Conference Proceedings. Our Conference Proceedings are Open Access research repositories, which act as permanent records of the research generated by IAFOR conferences. Further details are available here: iafor.org/ecah2017-final-paper-submission **THINK THINK (think.iafor.org), The Academic Platform, is IAFOR's online magazine, publishing the latest in interdisciplinary research and ideas from some of the world's foremost academics, many of whom have presented at IAFOR conferences. Content is varied in both subject and form, with everything from full research papers to shorter opinion pieces, interviews, podcasts, film and photography. ------------- ***Join IAFOR at ECAH2017 to: – Present to a global audience – Have your work published in the Conference Proceedings and considered for peer-reviewed, Open Access journals – Benefit from IAFOR's interdisciplinary focus by hearing about the latest research in Arts and Humanities, Media, Communication and Film, and more – Participate in a truly international, interdisciplinary and intercultural event – Take part in interactive audience sessions – Network with international colleagues **Register now to take advantage of Early Bird Registration prices. Early Bird Registration is open until the end of March 30, 2017. Lunch is included in all conference registrations. Please see the registration page for details: www.iafor.org/ecah2017-registration *If you have attended an IAFOR conference within the past year, or belong to an affiliated university or institution, we offer additional discounts in appreciation of your support. Please contact us at ecah@iafor.org for details. ------------- ***About IAFOR To learn more about IAFOR, please visit www.iafor.org. For enquiries please contact ecah@iafor.org.