May 11 C.F.P. UT Arlington: 19th Annual International Graduate Student Conference on Transatlantic History: “Subversive Spaces, Subversive Bodies in the Atlantic World”
Call For Papers
Subversive Spaces, Subversive Bodies in the Atlantic World
19th Annual International Graduate Student Conference on Transatlantic History
The University of Texas at Arlington
Date of Conference: October 19-20
Submission Deadline: Friday, May 11
Keynote Speakers: TBA
The Transatlantic History Student Organization is sponsoring the Nineteenth Annual International Graduate Student Conference on Transatlantic History.
Transatlantic history examines the circulation and interaction of people, goods, and ideas between and within any of the four continents surrounding the Atlantic basin between the time of the first Atlantic contacts in the 1400s and the present day. Situated primarily in the fields of social and cultural history, its approaches are problem-oriented in scope and often employ comparative and transnational frameworks.
We invite papers and panel submissions that are historical, geographical, anthropological, literary, sociological, and cartographic in nature—including interdisciplinary and digital humanities projects—that fall within the scope of transatlantic studies from both graduate students and young scholars. We will accept submissions for papers written in English, French, Spanish, and German.
This year’s conference will seek to examine how the human body, social spaces, and bordered territories can become sites of debate and conflict. As modern nation-states developed over the last few centuries, governments took as their prerogative the right to establish increasingly elaborate jurisdiction over lands and populations. Marshaling public opinion, the sciences of their age, and even state violence, authorities across the Atlantic World sought to regulate territory, identity, social activity, personal behavior, and even bodily integrity in new ways. Such efforts ultimately proved problematic as they failed to capture existing social realities that were more dynamic and diverse than, and sometimes anathema to, the constructed categories and delineations of governmental authorities. The very existence of certain activities, spaces, and individuals has often served to subvert gender norms, immigration restrictions, national identities, or racial designations. Interrogating such sites of conflict serves to enrich our understanding of power, shed light on the marginalization of and resistance of proscribed individuals and communities, and offers critical insight into normative ideologies and expressions. In engaging with these subjects, presenters will advance understandings of how state power, custom, and “official” knowledge are both constructed and undermined.
Possible paper topics and themes include, but are not limited to:
- State regulation of sexuality and gender relations;
- “Race-making” and immigration;
- Bodily difference and ableist narratives;
- Interracial social spaces;
- Mobility and national borders;
- Gender non-conformity and visibility;
- Race “science” and public policy;
- Knowledge, power, and politics
We also seek to explore and further establish shared terminology, methodologies, and defining parameters as they pertain to the field of transatlantic history. This conference has become an interdisciplinary and intercontinental meeting place where such ideas can converge into a common conversation.
Therefore, we also welcome papers on:
- Twentieth-century empires
- Transatlantic networks
- Making of nation-states
- Transnational spaces
- Transatlantic migrations
- Diaspora studies
- Collective memory
- Identity construction
- Transatlantic cuisine and consumption
- Intercultural transfer and transfer studies
- Transnational families
- Teaching transnational history
Submission of individual paper abstracts should be approximately three hundred words in length and should be accompanied by an abbreviated (maximum one page) curriculum vita. Panel proposals (3-4 people) should include titles and abstracts of panels as a whole, as well as each individual paper. Deadline for submission is Friday May 11. We will notify authors of accepted papers by early June.
Paper and panel submissions should be made at https://form.jotform.us/70865303289159
You can find additional information on our website: http://transatlantichistory.com/
Please direct all questions to brandon.blakesle@mavs.uta.edu or thso.webmaster@gmail.com
