1st International Conference DIM2015 The Commonwealth and its People: Diasporas, Identities, Memories

24-26 June 2015, University of Malta Valletta Campus St.Paul's Street VLT 1216, Malta Valletta, Malta

SUPPORTED BY THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE, CULTURE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE MINISTRY FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF MALTA

(Programme)

The conference follows a set of themes (Departure; Memory and Nostalgia; Identity; and Return) which will help to shape an art exhibition exploring the aspects of Diasporas, Identities and Memories.

The exhibition will be hosted in Saint James Cavalier Centre for Creativity in November-December 2015.

24 June 2015

9.00-10.30 Session Chair: Georgina Portelli

Opening Addresses by dignitaries (Hon Minister Owen Bonnici, Hon. Minister Evarist Bartolo, Mrs Phyllis Muscat, Prof Juanito Camilleri) [tbc] Georgina Portelli, Alexander Debono (Malta): The conference and the exhibition Great Partnerships: memories, identities, cultures and the search for meaning in the Commonwealth and its communities Terry Barringer (UK) - KEYNOTE

10.30-11:00

11:00-12:30 Session Chair: Lothar Jordan

Cultural heritage, identity formation and change in a globalizing world (session convened by Mrs Iskra Panevska, Memory of the World, UNESCO) The Caribbean: the making of its culture, identity and contribution to the global voice Guest Speaker: Mrs Joie Springer (Barbados) Panel discussion: Identities at risk: Protecting cultural and documentary heritage in times of war Panelists: Dr Gilly Carr (UK), Ms Emilija Nikolic (Serbia), Prof. Henry Frendo (Malta), Ms Joie Springer (Barbados)

12:30-13:30 Lunch break

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13:30-15:30 Session Chair: Emily Mark-FitzGerald

Forced diasporas: The Maltese Slave Experience in Ottoman Lands between the 16th and 18th centuries

William Zammit (University of Malta)

Dominant memories and dominating heritage: contested legacies of war in the British Channel Islands

Dr Gilly Carr, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Cambridge, UK

Migration, Diaspora, and the Slave Trade

Mark Joseph O. Asamani (Mount Crest University, Ghana)

Analysis of data from Maltese Passport Applications held at the National Archives of Malta: A new digital resource

Mark Caruana (Melbourne, Australia)

[Paper will be presented by Martin Hampton, Friends of the National Archives]

And I never saw another butterfly: art, literature and photography related to children in armed conflicts as an

educational tool and archival evidence.

Alice Nemcova (OSCE archives, Prague, Czech Republic) tbc

15.30-16:00

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16:30-18:00 Session Chair: Andy O’Dwyer

Memory, music and nostalgia From the Beatles to the Spice Girls: On the Recognisability of British Pop Dr John Ashley Burgoyne (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - KEYNOTE Communicating by proxy: Sound-souvenirs as mediators of community Andrew Pace (University of Mancester, UK) Sounds of Malta around the Globe Dr Toni Sant (St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, Malta) Letters from home – The distribution of music and audio-messages amongst Maltese communities around the world in the twentieth century Andrew Alamango (University of Malta)

18:30 Hosted by Adrian Grima, University of Malta

The richness of capturing memory: A trio of books and a digital archive presented by their authors and editors in the National Library of Malta From Dust to Digital: Ten Years of the Endangered Archives Programme (Maja Kominko, editor) Indian Diasporic Literature and Cinema (Nilufer Bharuca) Songs for a Blind Date (Josephine Burden) Diasporic Literary Archives (David Sutton)

25 June 2015

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9.00-10.30 Session Chair: Anne Gilliland

Facets of memory Archives - Curators of an island's collective memory. The Commonwealth island of Malta Professor Stanley Fiorini (University of Malta) - KEYNOTE 'Engaging' the Global Irish Diaspora: Migration and Public History since the 1960s Dr Emily Mark-FitzGerald (University College Dublin, Ireland) The Indian Diaspora in the Commonwealth: Remembering and Forgetting Professor Nilufer E. Bharucha (University of Mumbai, India) Documentation and the Materialization of Identity Dr Marc Kosciejew (Unversity of Malta)

10.30-11:00

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11:00-12:30 Session Chair: Mark Kosciejew

Identity: Perception and transmission White British diasporas in East / Central Africa Alistair Tough (University of Glasgow, UK) Broadcasting dynamics: Contributor to and beneficiary of national identity Professor Saviour Chircop (University of Malta) Migrating Memories: Transdisciplinary Pedagogical Approaches to Teaching About Diasporic Memory, Identity and Human Rights in Archival Studies Dr Anne Gilliland and Hariz Halilovich (USA/Australia) Transmitting Albanian Cultural Identity in the Age of the Internet Bendis Pustina (Ministry of Culture of Albania) Ancestral identity and ancestral memory in a crisis situation: historical and theoretical analysis and sharing of experience Stefka Piskuliyska, Dorothea Tabakova (Univeristy of Sofia, Bulgaria)

12:30-13:30 Lunch break

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13:30-15:00 Session Chair: Alexander Debono

Literature, art, personal memories and identity The Diasporic Literary Archives Network and the Commonwealth David Sutton (University of Reading, UK) Forgetting for Getting a Better Life – Jhumpa Lahiri’s Lowland- an Analysis Dr Shruty Das (Berhampur University, India)

Land as art, landscape as document: art collections at the National Library of Wales Gareth Lloyd Roderick (National University of Wales) Writing the Story: Memoir, Diaspora and Qualitative Research Dr Josephine Burden (Australia/Malta)

The inhabited memory Virginia Monteforte (France/Malta)

15.00-15:00

15:30-18:00 Session Chair: Gillian Oliver

Memory Going Digital: Challenges and Promises GO::DH and the formation of the Digital Humanities Professor Daniel O'Donnell (University of Lethbridge, Canada) - KEYNOTE The future of cultural heritage Professor Yasar Tonta (Hacettepe University, Turkey) The Endangered Archives Programme: preserving fragile memory Maja Kominko (ARCADIA fund, UK)

Closing discussion: How to capture and preserve better the memories of the Commonwealth? The input of the conference to CHoGM People’s forum Invited Speaker: Raymond Xerri (Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Malta) Malta's Diaspora, Malta Government Diaspora structures and outcome of Riga Diaspora Conference

19:00 Conference dinner (vouchers sold at registration)

26 June 2015: Workshops (Morning 9:00-13:00; Afternoon 14:00-18:00)

W1 Morning Session on UNESCO's MoW submission process

Joie Springer (Memory of the World, UNESCO)

The Memory of Human Rights: Freedom of the Press - Historical Outline and Documentation (Prof. Lothar Jordan, Chair of the Sub-Committee on Education and Research of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme [MoW]) in cooperation with Dr Marc Kosciejew and Dr William Zammit, University of Malta

9.00 Welcome

9.10-10:00 UNESCO's MoW submission process (Joie Springer)

10.00-10:30 Introduction: Memory of the World, Human Rights, Freedom of the Press

10.30-11:00 Coffee break

11.00-12:00 Examples: Freedom of the Press and documents (L. Jordan, M. Kosciejew, W. Zammit, D. Sutton)

12.00-12:30 Outlines of an online publication

12.30-13:00 Discussing possibilities of a concrete project as a follow-up to the conference

W2 Morning Sound and Vision Heritage: The Way Forward for Malta 9.30 Opening by dignitaries 9.45-10.30 Andrew Alamango presenting his recent Master research:

Scenarios for Preserving the National Memory Captured in Sound and Vision Materials 10:30:10-45 Coffee break 10:45-11:45 Panel discussion chaired by Georgina Portelli

Panelists: Alexander Grech, Andy O’Dwyer, Ashley Borgoyne, Caldon Merceica [tbc], Charles Farrugia, Gillian Oliver, Vicki Ann Cremona)

11:45-12:00 Conclusions