The McMaster University Department of History Conference Committee invites papers and panel proposals for the first Wilson Institute Graduate Student Conference, which will be held on November 9th and 10th, 2018 at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Graduate students in the field of history and beyond are constantly looking for ways to advance historical research by using innovative theories and methodologies. With this year’s conference, “Historiographical Innovations: A Conference on Emerging Historical Practices,” we want to reflect such initiative. Today’s emerging scholars use decolonization, gender, transnational, and cultural lenses alongside methods applied from memory studies, digital humanities, public history, and oral histories as the foundations of their research. Why? Because such trans-, inter-, and multi-disciplinarity has, for many of us, become crucial to our historical practice. This choice to move beyond the discipline’s traditional boundaries has enabled graduate students to push the field into new directions while engaging with contemporary issues.

We seek to highlight historians whose work opens up the study of history to be more inclusive of marginalized, forgotten, or subaltern narratives by challenging standard versions of political, social, and economic histories. Emerging scholars are confronting sterile narratives by engaging with avant-garde theoretical discourses and advanced practical approaches that allow for more critical analysis of the past. Often, this has serious implications in the present. This conference will therefore provide a platform for emerging scholars who are doing some of the most exciting and ground-breaking work for the field at large.

We invite graduate students of all levels and disciplines to submit individual papers and panel proposals that reflect this conference’s focus on innovative historical methodology. We will accept proposals on any time period, geographical region, and topic so long as they apply innovative approaches to doing history. The best papers will be considered for an edited collection to be published by McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Inuk scholar, curator, and Concordia University’s Research Chair in Indigenous Art History and Community Engagement, Dr. Heather Igloliorte, will deliver the keynote address for the conference.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Individual papers:
In one PDF document, please submit a 250-word proposal and a short biographical sketch.

Panels:
In one PDF document, please submit a 350-word panel proposal along with a 250-word abstract of each panel participant’s paper and a short biographical sketch.

This conference has the generous support of the L.R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History and Department of History at McMaster University. With their help, funding options for travel and accommodations will be made available to those participants whose papers and panels are accepted.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at: mcmasterhistgradconf@gmail.com. The deadline for submitted panels and papers is: March 31, 2018. Accepted panelists will be notified by email no later than mid-July 2018.