Inquiry on the spatial properties of memory has traditionally energized a variety of disciplines as well as built bridges among them: from philosophy, theology, and geography, to history, sociology and anthropology, from neuroscience and psychology to computer science and environmental studies. Environments affect remembrances that, in turn, shape identity, in a loop of interactions that blur boundaries between what is past and present. How do individuals and communities understand memory spaces, monuments, and borders? How do various kinds of environments –urban, rural, and virtual—retain or alter memory, while being shaped by it? How do historiographies, literary and artistic narratives connect space, place, and the environment? How is memory processed, archived, accessed, and continually reshaped through environment? What is the role of memory in the management of natural resources and environmental policy? This interdisciplinary conference will explore these and related questions.  We invite papers from any discipline that deal with the theme of this conference. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Historiographies

  • Food, culture, and identity

  • Literature, trauma, and memory

  • Memory construction and new technologies

  • Language, mobility, and migration

  • Memory, imagination, and the senses 

  • Memory and new ecologies

  • Museums, libraries, and archives

  • Borders and borderlands

  • Memory and sustainability

  • Artificial intelligence

  • Collective spaces and memory

  • Ethics of preservation


Please send your abstract (300 word limit) to Troy Paddock, [email protected]