Flags, Identity, Memory: Critiquing
the Public Narrative through Color
Anne Wagner and Sarah Marusek (eds)
In our project, the identification
of “identity” employs culturally specific color codes and images that conceal
assumptions about members of a people comprising a nation, or a people within a
nation. Flags narrate constructions of belonging that become tethered to negotiations
for power and resistance over time and throughout a people’s history. Bennet
(2005) defines identity as “the imagined sameness of a person or social group
at all times and in all circumstances”. While such likeness may be imagined or
even perpetuated, the idea of sameness may be socially, politically,
culturally, and historically contested to reveal competing pasts and presents.
Visually evocative and ideologically representative, flags are recognized
symbols fusing color with meaning that prescribe a story of unity. Yet, through
semiotic confrontation, there may be different paths leading to different
truths and applications of significance.
Knowing this and their function, we
should investigate these transmitted values over time and space. Indeed, flags
may have evolved in key historical periods, but contemporaneaously transpire in
a variety of ways. We should therefore investigate these transmitted values:
- Which values are being
transmitted?
- Have their colors evolved through
space and time? Is there a shift in cultural and/or collective meaning from one
space to another?
- What are their sources?
- What is the relationship between
law and flags in their visual representations?
- What is the shared collective
and/or cultural memory beyond this visual representation? Considering the
complexity and diversity in the building of a common memory with flags, we
would suggest our contributors interrogate the complex color- coded sign system
of particular flags and their meanings attentive to a complex
configuration of historical, social
and cultural conditions that shift over time.
For the reference book:
Abstracts should be submitted by
April 1, 2018 to Anne Wagner (valwagnerfr@yahoo.com)
and Sarah Marusek (marusek@hawaii.edu).
Acceptance will be sent by May 31, 2018 with other instructions.
A PRELIMINARY CONFERENCE WILL BE
ORGANIZED FROM 7 TO 9 February 2018 at the Université de Lille 2
(France).
Should you wish to participate to this
conference, please send an abstract by 2 January 2018 at the latest to Anne
Wagner (valwagnerfr@yahoo.com).
Further information about
registration fees will be sent afterwards.
Anne Wagner, Ph. D., Habilitation à
Diriger des Recherches - Qualifiée
Associate Professor, Université du
Littoral Côte d'Opale (France)
Correspondante LANSAD/CRL - CGU
CALAIS
Centre Droit et Perspectives du
Droit, Equipe René Demogue - Université de Lille II (France)
Research Professor, China University
of Political Science and Law (Beijing - China)
Editor-in-Chief of the International
Journal for the Semiotics of Law - http://www.springer.com/law/journal/11196
Series Editor, Law, Language and
Communication - Routledge (https://www.routledge.com/series/ASHSER1363)
President of the International
Roundtables for the Semiotics of Law - http://www.semioticsoflaw.com/
