Call for papers
The International Network for Theory of History (INTH) is pleased to announce that its fourth network conference will take place in Puebla, Mexico on 6, 7 and 8 May, 2020 at Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities ‘Alfonso Vélez Pliego’, Autonomous University of Puebla (BUAP).
Histories are not what they used to be. Once primarily associated with dusty books and documents, histories seem less bound to the written or even verbalized format and increasingly appeal to all of our senses. At times they do so with so much skill and persuasiveness that they fully immerse us in their presence and no longer look, sound, feel or smell like History at all.
New ‘media of historical expression’ (Morris-Suzuki) have been proliferating in academia and beyond, with histories being mediated and remediated (Bolter & Grusin) in computer games, virtual reality, reenactments, comic books, films and web-based digital environments among others. Most of these media paradoxically strive to erase any trace of mediation – generating a sense of unmediated contact with the past. These media and types of mediation are driven by mediators – e.g. game developers, re-enactors, film directors, artists, activists – who increasingly challenge professional historians’ ‘hegemony in the sphere of retrospection’ (Ricoeur). The new visual, aural and tactile technologies of historical mediation have evoked Luddite sentiments among some historians who feel threatened in their traditional existence as artisan wordsmiths. Others, however, have welcomed the new media of historical expression and celebrate their potential in relation to furthering and communicating historical knowledge as well as creating new possibilities for historical education.
The 4th INTH conference addresses the theme of ‘media, mediations and mediators’. Can visual and aural media yield forms of knowledge which cannot be captured by text-based historical media (as Rosenstone argues)? What happens to historical insights or ideas when they are ‘translated’ from one medium to another? Does the ‘visualism’ of many popular media of historical expression come at the cost of classic (text-based) hermeneutic approaches to the past? How does the rise of new mediatechnologies affect the relationship between historiography, archives and sources? How should historians engage with audiovisual archives, and how should they intervene in ongoing debates on audiovisual preservation? Which epistemologies (if any) can be used to adjudicate the ‘accuracy’ or value of the different forms of historical representation generated by various media of historical expression? Is it possible to explore new epistemologies in collaboration between historians and artistic practitioners? How may various forms of mediation change our conceptions of the goal or perceived benefits of remembering history? How does the linearity of the medium of writing affect our perception of history? How do the ‘instantaneous time’ and ‘instant history’ created by digital culture impact historical consciousness and conceptualizations of historical time? Does the rise of new mass media lead to a democratization of historical knowledge and representation, and its global dissemination, or do the economic and geo-political powers underpinning these media reproduce existing inequalities among historical cultures? How do new media of historical expression influence the position of professional historians as privileged ‘mediators’ of societal relations to the past? Why do certain mediators choose specific media to construct and convey their relationship with the past? Do our media-saturated societies demand the creation of a new type of historian? How can museology contribute to innovative forms of history mediated by images and sounds? How can media theory enrich debates in theory of history?
Thematic scopes
The main focus of this conference is on media, mediations and mediators and their relevance for the theory of history. But we also welcome papers on other relevant topics in the broad field of Philosophy and Theory of History, including (but not limited to):
Confirmed keynote speakers
Wulf Kansteiner (Aarhus University, Denmark)
Alison Landsberg (George Mason University, USA)
Ana Mauad (Fluminense Federal University, Brazil)
Practical information
Those interested in participating in the conference are asked to send in abstracts of 300-500 words either in docx or pdf format to Inthpuebla2020@gmail.com, by 5 August 2019. Please name your file following this structure: Surname_Title of the abstract
We will consider both proposals for panel sessions and individual papers. Panel proposals should preferably include a commentator and a chair. Please send the overall panel proposal and individual papers in the same application (all following the 300-500 words limit per paper).
The organizing committee is led by Lizette Jacinto, Berber Bevernage and Luis Trindade. Please use the conference email address for all correspondence. (Organizing team in Puebla: Lizette Jacinto, Abraham Moctezuma Franco, Amado Manuel Cortés, Octavio Spindola Zago)
The 4th INTH network conference (6-8 May 2020 ) will take place in the historic center of the city of Puebla at the BUAP in one of the many buildings of the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades ‘Alfonso Vélez Pliego’, namely the Ex-Convent ‘Las Clarisas’ (6 ote 406, Cp. 72000, Centro Puebla, in front of the Museum of the Mexican Revolution); See Map.
Although the city of Puebla has a small airport (Aeropuerto Internacional de Puebla Hermanos Serdán) it only serves a limited set of international connections and it will be easiest for most foreign visitors to reach Puebla by flying on the International Airport of Mexico City (also called ‘Benito Juárez International Airport’) and take a bus from there.
There is an easy, comfortable and very frequent direct bus connection between the International airport of Mexico City and the city of Puebla served by two companies called ‘ADO’ and ‘Estrella Roja’
For more info see: https://mexicoautobuses.com/horarios-autobuses/districto-federal-d-f/mexico-df-aeropuerto.html
The busses leave directly from the building of the Mexico City International Airport (both from terminal 1 and 2) and the bus tickets can be bought directly at the counter for around about 16 dollars. The ride takes about two and a half hours and the busses arrive in one of the main bus terminals of Puebla City, called ‘Terminal 4 Poniente’ (10 minutes from Puebla’s Downtown).; Please, from terminal 4 Poniente take a secure taxi cab to your hotel (to the center of the city the cost is around 80 pesos or 4 dollars) and remember, in Puebla you can also use Uber and Cabify apps.
It is recommended that you stay in one of the hotels in downtown Puebla and for the proximity to the Congress venue and various tourist attractions as well as various restaurants and points of interest. Price range from 45 to 80 dollars per night (double or single room with breakfast).
Hotel Colonial https://www.colonial.com.mx/
(990 p/mx, double or single room with breakfast included) Code: 4Th INTH.
Mail contact: gerencia:@colonial.com.mx
Hotel San Leonardo http://hotelsanleonardo.com.mx/
Category **** (high end):
City Express Puebla Centro https://www.cityexpress.com/express/hoteles-mexico/puebla/puebla-de-zaragoza/centro
Hotel NH Puebla https://www.nh-hotels.com.mx/hotel/nh-puebla-centro-historico?campid=8435708&gclid=Cj0KCQjwh6XmBRDRARIsAKNInDGSlqiMwdPlcJGSZ7797Nw73sYngTgTXWCXe_rMbSTjbNEGLbzSkdMaAhsmEALw_wcB
Category *** (mid-range):
Hotel Imperial http://www.hotelesdepuebla.com/hotelimperialpuebla.html
Hotel la Alhondiga http://hotellaalhondiga.com/indexbueno.html
Once you reach the downtown area of Puebla, you will understand the historical and artistic relevance of the City of Angels. According to local legend, the city is guarded by angels from the bell tower of the cathedral. From any corner of the city, you can see one of the five volcanoes that have been guardians of their treasures since pre-Columbian times: Popocatépetl, Iztlaccíhuatl, Malintzin, Cuexcomate and Chitlatépetl. Founded in 1531, the city has been a neuralgic place in the history of Mexico: the Iguala Plan, prelude to Independence, was published here; here, President Ignacio Comonfort applied for the first time the Reform Laws to separate the Church from the State; on May 5, 1862 the republican troops defeated the French army of Napoleon III in The Forts of Loreto and Guadalupe; On April 2, 1867, General Porfirio Díaz definitively defeated the Empire of Maximilian of Habsburg; In November 1910 the Serdán Alatriste brothers initiated the armed movement of the Revolution.
An eclectic City, it combines the Spanish Baroque with the French Art Deco. In Puebla, two foreign colonies stand out: Chipilo, whose inhabitants are originally from northern Italy and preserve their dialect and traditions; and the Germans, who settled in the Humboldt Colony, building typical Bavarian buildings, whose best example is the Lutheran church in this colony, and annually celebrate the Oktoberfest.
[*The municipal turist information office in Puebla City is located: between calle Ayuntamiento y Calle 2 Norte, Av. Don Juan de Palafox y. Mendoza, Centro, 72000 Puebla, Pue.]
The three thousand 28 pieces of collection tell the story of this property, since it is one of the few public museums in the world that protect an originally private collection in the property itself. These works were first collected by the inheritance of his father José Luis Bello and González, later throughout his life the industrial poblano José Mariano Bello and Acedo. Today the collection is one of the most prestigious in Mexico, bringing together works from America, Europe and Asia, with various genres such as Talavera, feather art, woodwork, glass and metals.
The cuisine of the Convent of Santa Rosa is considered the most beautiful in the state, since it was in this place where the mole poblano was elaborated for the first time by Andrea de la Asunción. This place was built in the seventeenth century as a beguinage of Dominicans sisters.
Museo Amparo is a private institution founded in memory of Amparo Rugarcía de Espinosa in 1991 by Manuel Espinosa Yglesias and his daughter Ángeles Espinosa Yglesias Rugarcía through Fundación Amparo with the commitment to preserve, research, display, and disclose Pre-Columbian, colonial, modern, and contemporary Mexican art.
The Gallery Treasures of the Cathedral of Puebla is a space dedicated to the dissemination of the rich patrimonial heritage that protects the Bishopric, as unique pieces of sacred art that have never been exhibited.
Three blocks from the main square, stands the Iglesia de Santo Domingo, a sober baroque style church that was built between 1571 and 1659 under the order of the Dominicans. It was part of a larger building, the Convent of the Dominicans, whose size reached almost two blocks. By the year 1855, during the reform laws, the complex was drastically changed, as the northern part was demolished and part of their land was expropriated. It is famous for the Capilla del Rosario, that in its day was considered as the eighth wonder of the world.
1542 began what would be the Real Hospital of San Pedro, stands out for its elegant patio of double arcade of quarry, being the second largest in the city of Puebla. It became over time, a space of innovation and vanguard for medical science, especially in the nineteenth century. In 2002, the current San Pedro Museum of Art was created.
Located in the first mechanized textile factory and the first one that used hydraulic power in Mexico to move its machinery, cradle of industrialization in Latin America. The Museums in la Constancia Mexicana Complex is today the headquarters of the Children’s Museum, Vienna’s Music House, Mexican Puppet House, Mexican Music Museum “Rafael Tovar and Teresa”, and the Juan C. Méndez Photo-Library.
The house museum of the Serdán Brothers allows the visitors to know the initial facts of the Maderista Revolution that overthrew Porfirio Díaz. At the time of the battle on November 18, 1910 the house was inhabited by Carmen, Natalia, Achilles and Máximo.
The Museum of Religious Art of Santa Mónica is one of the greatest exponents of the monastic life of women in the country and unique in the State of Puebla. Since it has a collection of sacred art from the 16th-19th centuries, conformed mostly by four collections of old female convents of the city of Puebla: Santa Monica (Agustinas Recoletas), Santa Catalina (Dominicas), Mr. San Joaquín and Santa Ana (Capuchinas) and La Soledad (Discalced Carmelites).
On September 5, 1646, Bishop Palafox y Mendoza donated his personal library, composed of five thousand volumes, to the seminarians of the Tridentine colleges, ordering that it could be consulted by anyone who wanted to read or study, for which it is considered the first public library in the Americas. Since then, it was established in the former College of San Juan, in the heart of the city of Puebla.
The building is distinguished by its eclectic French style with an armable structure of green iron and glass coming from France to the port of Veracruz and assembled in Puebla. With a privileged location, Capilla del Arte is the cultural space that has the vocation to form publics in art and generate aesthetic experiences. It is also a place of dialogue between artistic disciplines such as music, film, theater, dance, literature and visual arts.
It is called Casa de Alfeñique since 1790 because of its richly decorated façade that seems to be made of sugar paste, egg white and almonds, called “Alfeñique candy” in Spain. The Museum houses a collection of approximately 1,500 pieces, portraying the daily life in colonial Puebla and the nineteenth century. They are distributed in 16 exhibition halls. On the ground floor, a carriage that was used by the presidential cabinet of Porfirio Díaz and a carriage used by personalities of the Clergy.
Since the creation of the College of the Holy Spirit and throughout its existence, the institution has been enriched with various pieces and scientific devices that have formed the basis of existing schools. There are more than four thousand pieces that make up the collections of paintings, furniture, plasterwork, prints, photographs and watercolors that come from the College of the Holy Spirit, the Academy of Fine Arts or donations.
The Baroque was one of the most prolific periods in Western history. During the 17th and 18th centuries it permeated political and economic systems and transformed the conception of nature through innovations in thinking, creating, viewing, and lifestyle.
Cholula is considered the oldest city in America, inhabited without interruption since its origins. The former Franciscan convent of San Gabriel, one of the oldest in America, is located in this city. Both the city and the convent rise up next to the Popocatepetl volcano, as if they are trying to reach that snowy giant. Let us not forget the Sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, built in the sixteenth century by the Spanish and made of domes covered with tiles. It was placed right over the Great Pyramid, the foundation that appears to be a hill rather than an archaeological site. Time, people, and life come and go underneath this site. When visiting this Magical Town, you can explore the Great Pyramid and walk through its maze of tunnels or its outer paths.
The church of Santa María Tonantzintla is considered as the capital expression of the Mexican Popular Baroque style, made by indigenous people (tequitqui). Declared a Historical Monument on November 11, 1933, its first construction process dates back to the 17th century. Inside of the church, the Tláloc grotto is reproduced as the paradise of Tonantzin (the Virgin) and plasterwork was made with mexicanist iconography. Composed of brown angels, children with tufts, Mexican fruits: capulines, tejocotes, nanches, guavas, zapotes, pumpkins, cocoa, chilies, ears of corn, and horns of abundance, that do not leave a single space free, and that contrast with ornate elements with a gold bath.
Along the slopes of the Popocatepetl volcano, you will find Atlixco, a Nahuatl word that means “water in the valley.” Under the blue sky, across the valley and mountainous landscapes, find out why Atlixco’s 100,000+ inhabitants insist the town has the best climate in the world, and refer to their home as “the city of flowers.”
In the 42nd Meeting of the Committee held in Manama, Bahrain, this reserve with 490 thousand 186 hectares was considered and declared a natural protected area since 1998. This is important because its inhabitants have found a way and adapted their ways of living with the land. Tehuacán-Cuicatlán is an important reserve that hosts 70 percent of the families of the world flora and an agrobiodiversity center “for numerous groups of plants, such as cacti. Archeologists found the most ancient forms of cultivated maize known here.
The state of Tlaxcala is colorful, full of colonial architecture and vestiges. It is the place where the production of pulque was originated, wich is a drink of Prehispanic origin based on the fermentation of aguamiel (juice of the heart of the maguey). Near the capital is Cacaxtla, an archaeological area discovered on September 13, 1975. It contains murals in a very good state of conservation such as the one titled “Mural de la batalla”. With the newly opened corridor that connects the two archeological zones, you can take a walk of 800 m where you will find Xochitécatl whose name is translated as “Place of the lineage of flowers”; the Pyramid of Flowers, is considered the fourth largest in Mesoamerica, for its broad base, also stands out the Pyramid of the Spiral, which is unique for its circular plan. When Hernán Cortés set out to conquer Tenochtitlan, he forged an alliance with the old-rivals of the Aztec Empire and and soon Cortés would march towards Tenochtitlan with a large Tlaxcalan army at his side.
