text: From Memory Loss to Memory Shift: Rethinking the Discourse of Pathology
  Time: May 20th, 11:59 pm End: Apr 20th, 11:59 pm
  Interest Categories: Women & Gender Studies (FAS), Science/Technology, Psychology, Medicine, Faculty of , Information, Faculty of, Critical Theory
  Call for Papers for a conference to be held in Toronto 26 September 2015
  Centre for Memory and Testimony Studies @ Wilfrid Laurier University "Memory(Loss)" Research Group is pleased to announce:
  From MemoryLoss to MemoryShift: Rethinking the Discourse of Pathology
  September 26, 2015, Toronto
  Seeing that words can and do change meanings over time, can we consider a paradigm shift following which we will substitute the concept of 'memory loss' by a less intimidating and negative 'memory shift' – what would such a semantical alteration achieve?
  How do we view selfhood and loss of selfhood in the face of Alzheimer's?
  Can we view the loss of memory not as a disaster but as space for creation and recreation?
  What artistic productions (literary, visual, cinematic etc.) deal with memory loss and what are the tropes that they use to talk about Alzheimer's and to what ends?
  How do literary metaphors as well as medical discourses make their way into our everyday speech (and vice versa) with regards to Alzheimer's and other mysterious diseases?
  How and why did nostalgia stop being treated as a disease, and changed its pathological connotation to a sentimental one?
  What problems are revealed once we look at the discourse surrounding Alzheimer's?
  How does the language we employ affect our understanding of the relationship between memory and identity?
  How do words and expressions that we find in literary texts sift through the literary and reappear in everyday conversations with Alzheimer's individuals and their caregivers?
  How does symbolic and corporeal language come to define dire realities for patients with mysterious diseases such as Alzheimer?
  How can we employ art in our everyday life to change the "much feared stigmatizing label that carries with it the force of a sentence of social death" (Kontos, 2006)?
  For further information, please contact Liza Futerman or see the website at memoryshift.wordpress.com