c. Tatiana Bolari/Eurokinissi
ANNOUNCEMENT:
Given planetary developments regarding the CoViD-19 pandemic, the symposium will be postponed.
Given planetary developments regarding the CoViD-19 pandemic, the symposium will be postponed.
Dying in Public:
The Forensic, the Spectral and the Body Politic
The Forensic, the Spectral and the Body Politic
This international symposium will take place June 26 and June 27, 2020 in the seaside town of Agria (7km from Volos) at the conference center of the Nicholas and Eleni Porphyrogenis Foundation. Open to the public, this conference will simultaneously be the kick-off event of this year's PSL, and 2020 cohort members are strongly encouraged to attend!
Topic:
Arguably, the most pressing issue in contemporary societies is how they produce, dispose, grieve and live with their dead. Contrary to the assumption that death is either tucked out of sight in our private lives, or gorily overrepresented fictionally on screen, cultural debates, political struggles and technological innovations involving dead bodies are at the core of public life: these struggles over who witnesses, speaks and claims some dead bodies -- or wilfully refuses to account for and take care of others -- provide a critical lens onto social transformations and contestation around citizenship, national and religious identity, church/state relations, kinship, racial and sexual discrimination. At the same time, with the affective turn of public discourse, mourning, whether for global celebrities like Kobe Bryant or unknown refugees like Aylan Kurdi, has become the idiom through which national/global affective networks come into being. In short, to talk about the dead and their remains -- material and spectral -- is to talk about the contemporary public sphere and the (bloody) borders of citizenship.
This conference, which brings together international experts and local scholars, will foreground critical recent events involving the management, disposal, (ac)counting, mourning and re-presenting of controversial deaths and dead (and dying) bodies -- in Greek and neighboring societies: specifically, refugee death and the Mediterranean as a deathscape, the opening of Greece's first crematorium, the the archaeological and physical anthropological collection and display of human remains and the networked publics formed around the deaths of both celebrities and previously unknown victims of femicide/queer necropolitics.
Of course, these are not “local” themes. The aim of the conference is to draw on international experts, who will present an opening keynote panel and then serve as discussants to the panels sharing their comparative case studies and theoretical frameworks. At the same time, the conference will provide an opportunity to showcase research in Greek society to an audience of specialists, but also to the general public, as we launch this year’s Pelion Summer Lab.
Arguably, the most pressing issue in contemporary societies is how they produce, dispose, grieve and live with their dead. Contrary to the assumption that death is either tucked out of sight in our private lives, or gorily overrepresented fictionally on screen, cultural debates, political struggles and technological innovations involving dead bodies are at the core of public life: these struggles over who witnesses, speaks and claims some dead bodies -- or wilfully refuses to account for and take care of others -- provide a critical lens onto social transformations and contestation around citizenship, national and religious identity, church/state relations, kinship, racial and sexual discrimination. At the same time, with the affective turn of public discourse, mourning, whether for global celebrities like Kobe Bryant or unknown refugees like Aylan Kurdi, has become the idiom through which national/global affective networks come into being. In short, to talk about the dead and their remains -- material and spectral -- is to talk about the contemporary public sphere and the (bloody) borders of citizenship.
This conference, which brings together international experts and local scholars, will foreground critical recent events involving the management, disposal, (ac)counting, mourning and re-presenting of controversial deaths and dead (and dying) bodies -- in Greek and neighboring societies: specifically, refugee death and the Mediterranean as a deathscape, the opening of Greece's first crematorium, the the archaeological and physical anthropological collection and display of human remains and the networked publics formed around the deaths of both celebrities and previously unknown victims of femicide/queer necropolitics.
Of course, these are not “local” themes. The aim of the conference is to draw on international experts, who will present an opening keynote panel and then serve as discussants to the panels sharing their comparative case studies and theoretical frameworks. At the same time, the conference will provide an opportunity to showcase research in Greek society to an audience of specialists, but also to the general public, as we launch this year’s Pelion Summer Lab.
Organizing Committee
Penelope Papailias, University of Thessaly
Pantelis Probonas, University of Thessaly
Penny Paspali, University of Thessaly
Academic Committee
Dimitris Antoniou, Columbia University
Margaret Gibson, Griffith University
Pamila Gupta, University of Witwatersrand
Eleni Papagaroufali, Panteion University
Penelope Papailias, University of Thessaly
Pantelis Probonas, University of Thessaly
Aspasia Theodosiou, University of Ioannina
Alice von Bieberstein, Humboldt University of Berlin
With the support of:
The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
Netherlands Institute at Athens
Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University (Australia)
Penelope Papailias, University of Thessaly
Pantelis Probonas, University of Thessaly
Penny Paspali, University of Thessaly
Academic Committee
Dimitris Antoniou, Columbia University
Margaret Gibson, Griffith University
Pamila Gupta, University of Witwatersrand
Eleni Papagaroufali, Panteion University
Penelope Papailias, University of Thessaly
Pantelis Probonas, University of Thessaly
Aspasia Theodosiou, University of Ioannina
Alice von Bieberstein, Humboldt University of Berlin
With the support of:
The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
Netherlands Institute at Athens
Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University (Australia)
The program will be announced.
