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Conference Announcement "Historiography and the Question of Non-Western Pasts" International Conference La Trobe University Melbourne, VIC (Australia) 21-22 June 2007 __________________________________________________ For some time now rationalist historiography, a product of modern Western culture, has been the dominant mode of representing all pasts- including the pasts of those who did not, until recently, think of representing and relating to their past through historiography. However the works of Levi-Strauss, Michel Foucault, Michel de Certeau, Hayden White, Paul Veyne and others have demonstrated that historiography is itself an elaborate construction, not simply an attention to evidence and fact rather than superstition and fancy. If this is so, is there any reason to accord this mode of thinking epistemic privilege- treating it as superior to so-called myth, epic, legend and the dreaming? What is the epistemic status of these and other modes of thinking and representing the past? These are questions which have been confronted by historians of India and by historians (and anthropologists) of indigenous Australia, who (for example) have had to decide whether to treat gods, spirits and ancestors as historical actors, or whether to treat them merely as evidence of their subjects beliefs. This conference seeks to bring together those who, in writing about India or about indigenous Australia, have reflected upon how to treat these alternative ways of thinking the past, and who have reflected upon the status of the knowledge they produce when they write history. Confirmed speakers: Bain Attwood Greg Dening Barry Hindess Henry Reynolds Chris Healy Jorn Rusen Debjani Ganguly Sanjay Seth Deborah Rose Stephen Muecke Dipesh Chakrabarty Tony Birch Conference website: http://sueztosuva.org.au/e2005/ Registration form: Form can be downloaded from the conference website. For catering purposes we prefer participants to pre-register. However, it is also possible to register on the day. Subsidy for postgraduate students: The organisers have funds to assist four (4) postgraduates from outside Victoria with the costs of three-night accommodation. Please visit the conference website for details and application form. Contact: Tracy Lee, Project Officer School of Social Sciences La Trobe University Melbourne, VIC 3086 Australia Email: [email protected] Web: http://sueztosuva.org.au/e2005/ __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org
