Call for chapters

Deadline: October 20, 2021

We are seeking contributions for a forthcoming multidisciplinary edited volume (Intellect) that examines intangible cultural heritage. The book will be open to scholarship from any discipline in the humanities and social sciences including practice as research and provide a critical forum for dialogue on the theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues central to an understanding of media, memory and public history today.

Cultural heritage is not limited to museums and monuments anymore but also encompasses oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, artefacts, film and media, and cultural spaces. Intangible cultural heritage stands for the collective cultural expressions of the everyday culture; it is inclusive and community-based. It is closely linked to communities, groups, or even individuals who create, recreate, and transmit it from generation to generation. According to UNESCO, “intangible cultural heritage” (ICH) is important in safeguarding cultural diversity in the age of globalisation. It is “transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity.” (ich.unesco.org, 2021)

Intangible cultural heritage is a lived phenomenon. It constantly changes and diversifies, advances and develops, transitions, transforms, adapts, and is passed down to future generations. Hence, as a lived cultural reality, it cannot be preserved through regular or conventional means, namely by safeguarding it from any form of change. At the same time, what is important is not only how and in what way intangible cultural heritage is articulated, expressed and transmitted, but also the cultural framework in which it prospers, as well as how it is preserved.

The scope of this book will focus on exploring the concept of intangible cultural heritage and the new academic, artistic and creative directions of intangible cultural heritage that emerge from the public sphere and are part of public history. The aim will be to present scholarship that engages with aspects of intangible cultural heritage of the international arena as well as possibilities of their digital future.

You are invited to submit a 250-word abstract and a short biography by October 20, 2021. We welcome theoretical, empirical, or professional contributions of the highest standard on the following topics related to intangible cultural heritage with case studies and examples from all over the world including but not limited to:

• issues of terminology
• theory and local or global narratives
• issues of methodology
• what forces shape, create, recreate, and transmit intangible cultural heritage
• the local vs the national and the international
• globalisation and its effect (s) on intangible cultural heritage
• intangible cultural heritage and gender studies
• intangible cultural heritage and ethnicities

Chapters will be 6,000 to 7,000 words in length.

• Deadline for abstract submission: October 20, 2021
• Notification of acceptance: November 19, 2021

Ph.D. candidates with original empirical research are also encouraged to submit an abstract.

Prospective authors should submit an abstract directly by email to intangibleculturalheritagebook@gmail.com

Editors:

Dr Eleftheria Rania Kosmidou, University of Salford (UK)

Dr Leslie McMurtry, University of Salford (UK)