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Organizing Committee

The organizing committee of the AHM Annual Conference 2025 is composed of academic staff active in the research school.

• Dr. Sophie Berrebi
• Dr. Krisztina Lajosi
• Dr. Nour Munawar
• Dr. Mario Panico

Conference assistant

• Ms. Josien Franken
  
  

Scientific Committee

• Prof. Nanci Adler (Holocaust & Genocide Studies, NIOD)
• Prof. Maarten van Bommel (Conservation & Restoration)
• Prof. James Symonds (Archaeology)
• Dr. Hayley Mickleburgh (4D Lab)
• Dr. Christian Olesen (Digital Heritage)
• Dr. David Duindam (Literary Studies)
• Prof. Ihab Saloul (Heritage and Memory Studies)
  
  

Cultural heritage shapes individual and collective emotions, and vice versa. The reciprocal relationship between heritage and emotions is demonstrated by how, in recent years, political, activist and academic debates have reconsidered the importance of affect. No longer relegated merely to the individual and psychological dimension, these debates have come to frame emotions as constituent elements of social experience. Suffice it to consider the use of social fear of a global nuclear war; the imperialist nostalgia of Western countries, which see nationalism and/or populism as the solution to counter globalisation; the emotional polarization with the ongoing wars in Palestine and Ukraine; the resurgence of radical ethno-traditionalist rhetoric all around the world, driven by frustration with open-market globalism, and the manipulation of foreign-state propaganda aimed at exploiting emotions to politically target local populations; the pride or vindictive anger of activists who deface museums, works of art and monuments; heightened emotions in the context of social revolutions and political revolts and (neo)colonial struggle, the emotions connected to the memory and impact of the Pan-Atlantic slave trade and all forms of enslavement of people; or the solastalgia and anxiety caused by the ever-faster crisis of climate change.

These few examples indicate the extent to which emotions and thinking affect can become performative forces, driving actions and therefore building, preserving, destroying heritage and memory. Understanding the role of emotions in heritage sites, memory acts and material culture practices, policies and politics, therefore, is essential to grasp how the past is experienced, contested, romanticized, rejected or silenced across various local, national and transnational levels. In response to the need to better understand these processes, the 11th annual conference of the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture (AHM) will be dedicated to the polyphonies of emotions and thinking affect in heritage, memory and material culture studies. By crossing academic, artistic and professional boundaries, the aim of the conference is to investigate how the past can be constituted as a battleground where emotions are designed, weaponized and manipulated to advance political and ideological agendas, or to shape the mobilization of communities. This conference aims to explore the dynamic relationship between heritage and collective emotions, focusing on how emotions affect varied global heritage and memory practices, narratives and policies, and, vice versa, how heritage can serve as a tool for emotional mobilization, resilience and reconciliation.

Applications

We welcome abstracts and proposals for papers, panels and roundtables emanating from diverse historical and geographical contexts that engage with (but are not restricted to) the following themes:

• Theories of emotions and heritage: what theoretical perspectives can illuminate the relationship between heritage, emotion, and conflict, and how can these frameworks deepen our understanding of the emotional dimensions of heritage?
• Emotions and the politics of heritage and social justice: how do emotions contribute to preserving or challenging dominant and hegemonic heritage narratives? What role do emotions play in (re)shaping research positionalities, resisting cultural and political polarisation or facing systemic oppression and injustice?
• Emotions and heritage construction: how are emotional narratives intentionally constructed in heritage sites, museums, works of literature, films, and commemorations, with the aim of influencing collective memory and identity?
• Emotion and collective memory: how do emotional frameworks shape collective memory and the understanding of the past?
• The weaponization of emotions in conflict: how are emotions strategically manipulated to justify the destruction of cultural heritage or to mobilize communities to defend it?
• Heritage and collective solidarity: in times of crisis, how do communities utilize heritage to foster emotional resilience, solidarity, and a sense of shared purpose?
• Methodologies for studying emotions and heritage: what innovative qualitative and quantitative research methods are most effective for analyzing the role of emotion in heritage studies?

Applications should include

Applications for panels and roundtables should include

Proposals can be submitted by 15 March 2025 to ahmannualconference@gmail.com

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See a downloadable version of the Call for Papers here.

The Conference’s program spans across three days and consists of four keynote lectures and twenty-five thematic sessions. The full program can be found below.

In the document below you can read all the abstracts that will be presented during the conference, along with short biographies of the speakers presenting them.

Prof. Dan Hicks

Prof. Hicks will be joining us to give his lecture titled ‘Militarist Realism: Some thoughts on heritage, memory and material culture.’

Dan Hicks is Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at Oxford University, Curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford. His publications include The Brutish Museums: the Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (Pluto Press 2020) and Every Monument Will Fall: a story of remembering and forgetting  (Hutchinson Heinemann 2025). Bluesky/Instagram: @ProfDanHicks.

Dr. Eva van Roekel

Eva van Roekel is assistant professor at the Department of Social and cultural Anthropology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is editor of the Dutch anthropological journal Etnofoor, member of the advisory board of the Dutch Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation and co-editor of the journal Anthropology and Humanism. In 2020, her monograph Phenomenal Justice. Violence and Morality in Argentina (Rutgers University Press) received the international award Outstanding Academic Title 2020. Van Roekel’s work is defined by violence, morality, human rights, and natural resources in Latin America, which she approaches as an anthropologist with a multidisciplinary perspective in philosophy and the arts. As an independent filmmaker, van Roekel explores the practice of visual ethnography by theorising and working together with other independent filmmakers.

Prof. Ernst van Alphen

Ernst van Alphen is professor emeritus of Literary Studies at Leiden University. Before he was Queen Beatrix Professor of Dutch Studies at UC Berkeley. His publications include: Seven Logics of Sculpture. Encountering Objects Through the Senses (Valiz 2023), Productive Archiving. Artistic Strategies, Future Memories, Fluid Identities. (Ed. Valiz 2023), Shame and Masculinity (ed. Valiz 2021), Failed Images: Photography and Its Counter-Practices. (Valiz 2018), Staging the Archive: Art and Photography in Times of New Media. (2014), Art in Mind: How Contemporary Images Shape Thought. (2005), Francis Bacon and the Loss of Self. (1992), Caught by History: Holocaust Effects in Contemporary Art, Literature and Theory. (1997).

During the conference, Prof. Ernst van Alphen will be engaging in conversation with curator and visual artist Marjan Teeuwen.

Marjan Teeuwen

Marjan Teeuwen is curator and visual artist. Central to Teeuwen’s work on her Destroyed House – series are large-scale architectural buildings that are subsequently demolished. In her series of installations titled The Destroyed House, the constructive force of building and the force of construction go hand in hand: the polarity of construction and destruction representing chaos as an essence of human existence. Though the installations are artistically autonomous, Teeuwen’s work engages with the historical, political and social context of its geographical location, ensuring a mutual reinforcement between the installation and its context. See Marjan Teeuwen’s website for more information on her work.