Call for Abstracts

The journal Change Over Time: An International Journal of Conservation and the Built

Environment, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, invites submissions for the Fall 2019

issue.

A HERITAGE OF WAR, CONFLICT, AND COMMEMORATION

Guest Editor: William Chapman

Sites of war and conflict that symbolize collective loss or that served as pivotal moments in

national or global history are sometimes elevated to the status of “heritage.” Battlefields, sites

of bombings, or places of terrorist attacks are all marked by human tragedy and acts of violence

and their interpretation is inherently conflictual. This issue of Change Over Time examines

heritage produced by violent acts of destruction and our efforts to commemorate the complex

narratives these sites embody.

To support the interpretation of sites characterized by absence, we have often erected

commemorative memorials of various forms from plaques and commissioned statuary to the

presentation of charred and damaged remnants of what stood before. Examples featuring the

vestiges of physical destruction include: the hull of the USS Arizona, sunk during Japan’s 7

December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor; the skeleton of the domed administrative building that

marked the zero point of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945; the stabilized walls of

St. Michael’s Cathedral in Coventry, a victim of the German Luftwaffe’s November 1940 blitz;

and the “Survivors’ Stairs,” the last remaining element of the World Trade Center following its

destruction on 11 September 2001. In this issue, we invite contributors to interrogate the types

and nature of heritage produced out of war and conflict, the forms of its commemoration, and

the challenges associated with its conservation. We encourage contributors to consider the

influence of class, politics, and culture in commemorative expressions; the technical and

conceptual challenges of conserving objects or places of destruction; inclusive or conflicting

(re)interpretation; and evolving perceptions of places over time.

We welcome contributions representing a broad array of geographic, cultural, temporal, and

historical contexts that may or may not include vestiges of destruction but that do address the

complex attributes of collective place based tragedy. Submissions may include, but are not

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limited to, case studies, theoretical explorations, and evaluations of current practices or policies

as they pertain to the conservation and commemoration of heritage of war and conflict.

Abstracts of 200-300 words are due 1 August 2018. Authors will be notified of provisional

paper acceptance by 1 September 2018. Final manuscript submissions will be due late

November 2018.

Submission

Articles are generally restricted to 7,500 or fewer words (the approximate equivalent to thirty

pages of double-spaced, twelve-point type) and may include up to ten images. See Author

Guidelines for full details at cotjournal.com, or email Senior Associate Editor, Kecia Fong at

cot@design.upenn.edu for further information.