Pursuing its transdisciplinary vocation, and seeking to link science and society, CITCEM chose the theme “In times of war…”for its 8th Meeting. The aim is to promote a broad scientific debate on how contexts of war and imminent risk interfere in the production of knowledge and science, as well as in the management and preservation (or annihilation) of memories and heritage.

Starting from the triangulation between ideology, politics and science, the 8th CITCEM Meeting opens the door to a transversal debate, in TIME and SPACE, about the impact of war on all areas of production and circulation of knowledge, information and visual, literary and scientific culture.

The theme prompts reflection on an almost infinite number of topics for analysis and the participation of specialists in the most varied areas, from the Social and Human Sciences, the Arts and Applied Sciences or those linked to Genetics or the Life Sciences.

The thematic axes that can be addressed include:

Heritage at risk/ iconoclasm/ resilience/ rehabilitation are areas that can be explored. This axis includes the analysis not only of destruction resulting directly from acts of war, but also of the creation and/or appropriation of heritage in the context of totalitarian regimes and their subsequent course.

Artistic and cultural production. These include the purges, the “autos-de-fé” at German universities, for example, Mao’s cultural revolution and, above all, the theft of works of art in the context of war, such as the Napoleonic Invasions and the Second World War. Also included are forms of “artistic eugenics” inherent in the Nazi concept of Degenerate Art (Entartete “Kunst”), which stripped the status of art from the productions of “enemies of the state”, feeding art market networks or their destruction after educational exhibitions that informed the public of their “dangers”.

Advertising. For example, documentaries, cartoons and fictional political or war propaganda films; educational documentaries; documentaries about the Holocaust; etc. Also noteworthy are the perspectives outside the official discourse, with pacifist films such as Abel Gance’s J’Accuse (1919) or Goya’s series of engravings Disasters of War.

Digital technologies as a means of preserving, monitoring and managing heritage, and in certain cases, territories that are not accessible due to problems of instability and insecurity.

Fieldwork, particularly in the fields of archaeology and anthropology. War reporting and the practice of journalism in times of war are highly relevant areas of reflection, given their impact on the real conditions in which journalists carry out their duties.

Production of historical memories or activation of forms of damnatio memoria. Ideological manipulations that have led to or induced acts of war, as well as the way in which historical narratives are conditioned in order to promote, combat or condition processes involved in war intentions or campaigns. Ideology, nationalism and totalitarianism are interconnected in this debate.

Representations of war in literature. Images of war and its effects; propaganda and resistance literature; concepts of war and the warrior in different socio-cultural contexts.

Religious practices and forms of belief. Pilgrimage circuits in times and contexts of war. Tolerance and religious intolerance. Religion as the driving force behind acts and campaigns of war.

Justice, law and ethics. The role and intervention of international courts in cases of crimes against humanity or the environment. The processes for recognizing amnesty and pardons. The historical experiences of testimonies.

War economies. This area can cover both the solutions inherent in the “war economies” themselves, including the military-industrial complexes, and how to live in times of war through, for example, forms of informal, domestic and family economy.

Urbanism and forms of organization of space and territory. The use of urbanism as a form of representation of hegemonic powers (e.g. Welthauptstadt Germania) or the conception of an “underground urbanism”, of survival (see the bunkers, which still bear witness in cosmopolitan cities today), the trenches, the Vinh Moc tunnels (Vietnam).

Applied sciences, civil engineering, electronic and computer engineering, chemical industries, arms industries, imaging, communication and surveillance technologies, related to intelligence services are also areas that can be explored.

Scientific production in the fields of Genetics, Medicine, Psychiatry, Anthropometry, Biology and Epidemology.

Monitoring and action on the impacts of atomic and biological warfare on biodiversity (Agent Orange, Hiroshima, Nagazaki, …).

PROGRAM