Narratives of the crisis: myths and realities of contemporary society

Narratives are present in all societies. They are present in myths, legends, news, rumors, in historical and artistic texts, in politics, in everyday conversation. Stories are able to construct reality. As Roland Barthes suggested (1966) the most important issue is to describe the code by which the narrator and the reader are signified in a narrative. In this sense, an author is not the one who invents a narrative but the one who possesses best the code used by the participants. The different social discourses are supposed to reveal what a society considers as “natural”, as requiring no further explanation (the so called “common sense” used by media discourses). This kind of narrative coincides with the social representations of the audience and even if this is not always the case, the social subjects normally try to reduce the distance between the information received and their attitudes: strategies are thus elaborated in order to maintain an ideological system (or: a dominant way of thinking).
Narrative analysis has become fundamental for the social sciences, and especially for sociology. Myth cannot always be clearly differentiated from “reality” in the social discourse (fiction seems essential to the “reproduction” of the facts): it is necessary to be understood in relation with the narrated reality.
The “Narratives of crisis: myths and realities” International Conference aims to record and analyze the myths which narrate the economic crisis in Europe and particularly in Greece, and investigate the ways media and the diverse political and social discourses represent the crisis. The Conference is organized by the AISLF, the ISA, the University of Macedonia, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the Orthodox Academy of Thessaloniki, in collaboration with the Ionian University, the French Institute of Thessaloniki and the Institute for Community Rehabilitation. The Organizers invite contributions (in French, Greek or English) from the whole spectrum of social and political sciences, media studies and the study of contemporary everyday life.

Please send abstract proposals of c. 250 words, including affiliation and contact information, to narrativesofcrisis@gmail.com until Thursday, January 15, 2015.