Special issue of TMG Journal for Media History on broadcast archives in Europe and launch event “On the Record? New Approaches to the History of Radio Archives”

We’re pleased to announce the release of our new special issue of TMG Journal for Media History (open access), which takes up critical historical perspectives on broadcast archives in Europe: 

www.tmgonline.nl/56/volume/25/issue/2/

Next week we’ll host a launch event at SPUI25 in Amsterdam (see details below), and further info about the TRACE research project can be found on our new website: https://trace.humanities.uva.nl.

Best wishes,

Carolyn Birdsall and Erica Harrison

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On the Record? New Approaches to the History of Radio Archives

SPUI25 – Wednesday 19 October, 17:00-18:30

What voices from the past are preserved in Europe’s radio archives, and whose stories are excluded? A panel of academics and archival practitioners will discuss new scholarly work on the critical study of radio archives, examining how such work can inform our understandings of Europe’s past and present.

From efforts to protect historical records in Ukraine from military attack through to recent seizures of White House records by the US National Archives and Records Association, the politics of archives remains a timely and urgent matter. So far, however, in the growing critical attention to the study of archives, there has been little attention paid to the records of broadcasting institutions.

As the dominant means of mass communication for decades, what can the study of radio archives tell us about the institutions and societies which created them? How were radio archives and their collections formed and how did major events such as the Second World War affect them? How has our understanding of recent European history been shaped by what has been kept (or omitted) from the radio archive?

This afternoon, we will celebrate the release of “Historical Traces of European Radio Archives, 1930-1960” (in TMG Journal for Media History). This special issue showcases perspectives from scholars and archival practitioners, and seeks to facilitate an interdisciplinary conversation at the intersection of media history, radio studies, and critical archival studies.

About the speakers

Carolyn Birdsall is Associate Professor of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam, where she is affiliated with the Television and Cross-Media team and leads the NWO-funded project TRACE (Tracking Radio Archival Collections in Europe, 1930-1960).

Erica Harrison is a post-doctoral researcher on the TRACE project at the University of Amsterdam, focusing on radio archive history in Czechoslovakia and East Germany, 1930–1960. 

Vincent Kuitenbrouwer works as a senior lecturer in the History of International Relations at the University of Amsterdam and coordinates a project on Dutch media during the Second World War for the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision in Hilversum (Mediaoorlog).

Pekka Salosaari has been working for the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle Archives for more than twenty years and is currently Audio Collections Manager. 

For more information and registration: https://spui25.nl/programma/on-the-record

CfP: FUTURE [of] ARCHIVES (IAMHIST) Montréal, June 2022

International Association for Media and History Conference 2023

Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada 20-22 June (in-person)

Link IAMHIST-website: Call for Papers: IAMHIST Conference 2023 |

Deadline for submissions (20-minute presentations, panels of three 20-minute papers, or practice-based research/workshops): 16 January 2023

IAMHIST is the International Association for Media and History, an organization of scholars, filmmakers, broadcasters and archivists dedicated to historical enquiry into film, radio, TV and other media. 

Archives have always played a considerable role for research and creation, especially in film and media studies. By virtue of their form and content, archives put at the forefront questions of possible and alternative historiographies and the shaping of memories and invites reflection on forgetting. Ranging from censorship to emancipation, archives are often source and reason for debate, powerplays and struggles as they can be object of censorship, but also ways of emancipation. They are not only sites of memory, but also sites and signs of social and cultural change. There has been an increased scholarly interest in archives since the arrival of digital tools and the Web, and the concept of the archive itself has been questioned, discussed, and redefined.

This conference aims to revisit these archival transformations by bringing into focus archives’ neglected spots, notably in relation to their accessibility and ecological dimensions. How do existing archival institutions, associations or private collectors and archivists address technology and media transformations? What are the current and future challenges of archival research? What type of ‘new’ archives can be imagined and created in relation to technology and media transformations? 

The IAMHIST Conference will be particularly interested in proposals dealing with media archives (film, radio, video, television, Web, photographs, etc.) but also warmly welcomes archives that use media and technology institutionally (museums, associations, vernacular archives etc.).

We invite scholars, archivists, practitioners, and artists to send a proposal that concerns one or more of the following topics:

  • Archives and accessibility
  • Archives, restitution, and memory
  • Archives and social justice
  • Archives and ecology / sustainable archives
  • Archives and decolonization
  • Case studies of archival use in media history research
  • Archives and (media-) storage
  • Reuse of archives in research, artistic projects, and practice
  • Archival material in film and arts
  • Reflections on how to archive research/scholarly activities
  • Vernacular, private, and institutional archives
  • History of media archives
  • Financing and funding of archives
  • Internationalization of archives
  • Local and regional archives
  • Archives, memory, and nostalgia
  • Archives and emotion

The deadline for submissions is 16 January 2023. You can submit proposals here*: iamhistconference2023@gmail.com

Individual paper proposals should consist of a title, an abstract of 200 to 300 words and a short biography. We especially welcome proposals from early career researchers and practitioners. Panel proposals (of three papers) are welcome; they need to be registered by one individual presenter of the panel who must include the title of the panel and all paper abstracts and short bios. We also appreciate proposals for archival, artistic or multimedia/practice-based projects or workshops. You are welcome to discuss their suitability with the conference organizers in advance of the deadline.

Notifications of decisions will be sent alongside additional information on travel and accommodation by early February 2023; registration will be open by that day. Registration fees will be kept as low as possible and depend on several funding opportunities that the organizers are currently seeking. Conference attendees are expected to be members of IAMHIST – there will be an opportunity to join at the time of registration. Information about IAMHIST membership can be found here: http://iamhist.net/membership/.

*If you identify as a person with a disability and need support (for printed documents in another format, for American Sign Language or Langue des signes québecoise, access to remote locations, etc.), please express/communicate your needs to the organizers prior to the beginning of the congress via this address: iamhistconference2023@gmail.com

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ECREA Pre-Conference (6-7 October 2022) : The Transformation of Public Dissent. Public Spheres and Alternative Media to Disinformation Ecologies?

Please find below the preliminary program of the ECREA Pre-Conference on the Transformation of Public Dissent.
The preconference will be held online via Zoom. Please email christian.schwarzenegger@uni-a.de to register free of charge. You will then be provided the access data. 

CfP: #History on Social Media – Sources, Methods and Ethics

The joint project SocialMediaHistory of the Universities of Bochum and Hamburg is organising an online conference on “#History on Social Media – Sources, Methods, Ethics” from 11 to 12 November 2022. 

Deadline for submission: Abstracts (500 words) and a short biography (max 100 words) can be sent to socialmediahistory@rub.de by 31.8.2022.

The detailed call for participation is available here.