12-14 June 2014, Helsinki & Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
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The 3rd International Conference of the European Information and Research Network on Parliamentary History
The 9th Annual Jyväskylä Symposium on Political Thought and Conceptual History
Parliaments and Methodology: Anthropological, Discourse-Oriented and Digital Approaches to Parliamentary History
12-14 June 2014, Helsinki & Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Organised by the Department of History and Ethnology of the University of Jyväskylä, the European Information and Research Network on Parliamentary History (EuParl.net) and the Finnish Historical Society
Scientific Committee: Prof. Carla van Baalen (Radboud University Nijmegen, Centrum voor Parlementaire Geschiedenis), Prof. Jean Garrigues (Université d’Orleans, Centre d’Histoire Parlementaire et Politique, Paris), Dr. Adéla Gjuri?ová (Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic), Prof. Pasi Ihalainen (University of Jyväskylä), Dr. Paul Seaward (History of Parliament Trust, London), Dr. Andreas Schulz (Kommission für Geschichte des Parlamentarismus und der politischen Parteien, Berlin)
The European Information and Research Network on Parliamentary History (EuParl.net) has previously organized international conferences on ‘The Europe of Parliaments’ in Paris in 2012 and on ‘The Ideal Parliament’ in The Hague in 2013 (see https://euparl.net). In its third international conference, EuParl.net invites experts on European parliamentary studies from various academic fields to present, discuss and rethink their latest methodological approaches. Special attention will be paid to anthropological, discourse analytical and oral approaches to parliamentary institutions as well as to the implications of the digitization of parliamentary records for research on parliaments. While individual papers may focus on one national parliament and on a limited historical period, comparative and transnational approaches are encouraged, and most papers are likely to address the common European tradition of parliamentary government, or government by discussion, in a way or another. This evolving tradition will play a key role also when European societies face future challenges as democratic, participatory, deliberating and innovative societies.
While providing an update on current approaches to anthropological, discourse-oriented, oral and digital parliamentary research, the conference aims at developing these methods further so that they could to better serve academic research in parliamentary history and related fields. It is expected to give rise to a collected volume on current methodologies in parliamentary studies. Furthermore, the conference and EuParl.net at large aim at increasing understanding of the significance of parliamentary traditions among the European publics at national and international levels.
The invited and confirmed speakers include several leading anthropologists, linguists, historians and political theorists: Marc Abeles (Paris), Emma Crewe (London), Shirin Rai (Warwick), Henk te Velde (Leiden), Ton van Haaften (Leiden), Marnix Beyen (Antwerp) and Kari Palonen (Jyväskylä).
Proposals on methodological papers of no more than 20 minutes addressing the following questions are invited:
– How do anthropologists analyse social relations, rituals and ceremonies in parliaments and what can historians learn from these methods?
– How should oral history of parliaments be recorded and written?
– How do alternative linguistically and rhetorically oriented strategies to analyse parliamentary history relate to each other?
– How can political theorists make use of historical analyses of parliamentary discourse?
– What are the methodological implications and future possibilities for parliamentary history opened by the digitization of parliamentary records?
Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words to pasi.t.ihalainen@jyu.fi by 15 September 2013. The speakers will be informed about the acceptance of their papers by 15 October. The conference fee is expected to be 200 euros and will include charter coach transport from Helsinki to Jyväskylä and back, all meals and refreshments during the conference as well as an excursion.
