Call for Papers

CATS-SJTU International Graduate Student Conference

“Memory—Between Experience, Culture, and Transculturality”

Memory has become one of the central categories through which the humanities interrogate the past, the self, and the conditions of historical knowledge. Far from being a mere repository of bygone events, memory unfolds at the intersection of experience, narration, embodiment, and cultural transmission. This conference invites graduate students from across the humanities to explore memory as a dynamic and contested field—one in which individual recollection, communicative exchange, and culturally sedimented forms of remembrance are in constant dialogue.

Drawing on theories of cultural memory, this CfP encourages reflections on how societies stabilize, ritualize, and transform images of the past through texts, images, practices, and institutions, while also attending to communicative memory as it circulates in everyday interactions and lived social relations. Equally central is the notion of collective memory, which foregrounds the ways in which remembering is never purely private but shaped by social frameworks, power relations, and shared imaginaries. What are the functions of different dimensions of memory, how should its media (such as writing, images, or monuments) be evaluated, and what forms of dealing with stored knowledge exist that attach growing importance not only to history, politics, and science, but also to art? In an increasingly interconnected world, different dimensions of memory further cannot always be adequately understood without addressing questions of transculturality: the movement of memories across borders, languages, and historical contexts, as well as the frictions and creative reconfigurations that arise from such encounters.

We invite contributions that approach memory from philosophical, literary, historical, anthropological, cultural-theoretical, or related perspectives. Possible lines of inquiry include, but are not limited to:

• The nature of memory and its epistemic status: what kind of knowledge does memory produce, and how does it differ from other forms of knowing (i.e. perceptual, testimonial, archival etc.)?
• Memory and truth: can memory be considered a reliable access to the past, or is it constitutively marked by distortion, selection, and narrative reconstruction?
• The role of memory in shaping subjectivity: how do practices of remembering inform personal identity, self-understanding, and affective orientation in the world?
• Remembering and forgetting: how are acts of forgetting structurally intertwined with memory, and to what extent is forgetting a precondition of historicity and meaning-making?
• Memory and embodiment: in what ways is the past lived on through the body, sensory experience, and habitual practices, and how does embodied memory challenge purely cognitive models of recollection?
• Collective memory: how is the collective memory distinct from aggregated individual memories? Does the rise of digital media and global communication accelerate or fragment collective memory?
• Transcultural memories: how do memories travel between cultures, and how are they translated, contested, or transformed in new social and historical settings?

We particularly welcome interdisciplinary and comparative approaches that open new perspectives on memory beyond national or disciplinary boundaries.

Submission Guidelines
Graduate students and young professionals from both universities are invited to submit abstracts of 500 words (including 3-5 keywords) on topics related to the conference theme no later than March 15^th, 2026 to Mr, KAN Peilin: international-hum@sjtu.edu.cn. Please include your name, institutional affiliation, and a short biographical note (150 words). Decisions of acceptance will be announced by April 15^th, 2026. The conference will be held in English. It will take place in in Heidelberg.

To recognize the most outstanding paper presented at the conference, the conference committee will nominate the “Sheng Sheng 生生 Best Student Paper Award.” To be eligible for the award, the full paper needs be submitted by May 31^st, 2026 to the same email address. The award comprises an honorarium of 3,000 RMB (appr. 400 Euro).

Information for students from SJTU:

The costs for the international travel as well as hotel costs in Heidelberg for the duration of the conference will be covered. If your contribution to the conference is accepted, your participation is binding and cannot be withdrawn. For further inquiries, please contact Dr. Petra Thiel.