Tracing Memory

Above is an image from New Year’s Eve Day on Galiano Island off the coast of Vancouver. Despite the grey weather, it was a beautiful day.

The winter holidays are coming to an end and I’m gearing up for another semester. But before officially shifting gears, one last note of new year reflection before the semester moves into full swing: A friend of mine told me that instead of making a new year’s resolution, she decided instead to choose a single word as the year’s theme. I’m doing the same. My word this year is “joy.” It makes me happy just thinking about it. I’m looking forward to a joyful year, and wish you the same.

On the horizon this semester are two great conferences:

1) The Limits of Memory - an interdisciplinary conference organized by the New School for Social Research in New York. This is the third year of the annual conference and I’m fortunate enough to be on the organizing committee this year. March 4 – 6, 2010.

Every act of remembering also implies some form of selective forgetting and a reconstruction of the past, often according to present political or cultural needs. This conference aims to address some of the limits in theories and practices of memory, focusing on how the uses of memory are often intimately tied up with its abuses. We also hope to explore the ways in which the growing field of memory studies can continue to push the boundaries of inquiry and the boundaries between disciplines.

2) Truth, Reconciliation, and the Residential Schools – This conference is organized by Nipissing University, in North Bay, Ontario in  the territory of the Nipissing First  Nation. March 5 – 7, 2010.

Since the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples expressed the need for sustained testimonials, apologies and compensation in the service of reconciliation, truth and justice, the survivors, leaders and scholars of the residential school system have gathered. Some have gathered to work through the possibilities of truth and reconciliation. Others have gathered to strategize and discuss the potential to realize justice, responsibility and healing. There remains much more to debate. Over one year has passed since Prime Minister Harper’s apology and  the initiation of  the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).  As  the TRC resumes full operation,   the pressing  question lingers: are the goals of justice, truth and reconciliation being served?

Unfortunately, the two conferences are being held at the same time. I’ll be presenting a paper in the latter one, so will have to miss the Limits of Memory Conference.