Contested Pasts, Uncertain Future(S): Heritage, Memory, and History

The Laboratory for Philosophy and Theory of History announces its international conference, to be held on 24-26 September 2026 in Yerevan. Bringing together philosophers, historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and scholars of heritage and memory, the event will provide a platform for critical engagement and dialogue on the ways in which the past is interpreted, preserved, and contested across disciplines and societies.

The theme Contested Pasts, Uncertain Future(s): Heritage, Memory, and History traces how societies construct meaning from experiences of destruction, violence, and loss, and how these meanings shape collective identities and future imaginaries. In a world marked by genocide, war, cultural erasure, and ecological devastation, the conference seeks to question the moral and epistemic responsibilities involved in narrating and creating the past.

The event aims to expand theoretical inquiry into heritage as a field of conflict and negotiation. Heritage is never neutral; it embodies claims to ownership, belonging, and continuity, often entangled with questions of displacement, colonial legacies, and political power. The conference will consider how indigenous and native communities struggle to sustain their historical lands, languages, and material cultures amid global pressures of appropriation, modernization, and erasure. These issues call for renewed philosophical engagement with the concept of heritage itself: its ontological foundations, its ethical implications, and its relation to historical justice.

The conference will explore the intersection of heritage, memory, and historiography – examining how material remains, institutional frameworks, and historical writing intertwine in shaping public understanding of the past. It will also address the challenges posed by relativism, competing historical claims, and the erosion of trust in expertise. By combining perspectives from philosophy, history, archaeology, epistemology, and art, the event seeks to foster a conversation about the ethics of historical representation and the fragile relationship between knowledge, authority, and memory.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

Ewa Domańska (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland)

Lynn Meskell (University of Pennsylvania, USA)

Arsen Bobokhyan (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Armenia)

Those interested in taking part in the conference are invited to send in an abstract of 300-500 words (in .doc or .docx) to [email protected] by 15 March 2026. Please name your file following this structure: Surname_Title of the abstract. Accepted participants will be notified by the mid-April.

Papers must be presented in either English or Armenian. There is no registration fee.