For the past two decades, innovative scholarship has challenged the primacy of national histories, providing graduate students with methodological and theoretical tools for research projects that transcend spatial boundaries. Atlantic, transnational, and global studies have changed the way history is written; nevertheless, they face their own challenges. As more and more graduate programs offer training in Atlantic and World history, it is important for students to critically engage with the benefits and limitations of their specialization.
What is the future of Atlantic, transnational, and World history? What are their respective strengths and weaknesses, and their latent assumptions? What sort of innovative research is being done in these fields? How do the fields relate to each other?
These questions and more will be discussed at the “Beyond Borders: The Practice of Atlantic, Transnational, and World History” Graduate Conference.” The conference will be held at the University of Pittsburgh on April 11-12, 2015.
The conference will feature keynote addresses by Pierre Serna, director of the Institut d’histoire de la Révolution française in Paris and Jane Landers, the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History at Vanderbilt University.
Participants are invited to give 15-20 minute papers on themes that could include, but are not limited to:
- labor and class
- circulation (of people, goods, and ideas)
- space and borders
- knowledge and culture
- networks, solidarities, communities
- individual and collective identities (e.g. race, gender)
We invite graduate students to send proposals using original research to address themes in Atlantic, World, and transnational history.
Applicants should send their name, email address, institutional affiliation, a brief CV, and a, and 300 word abstract to beyondborders2015@gmail.com by October 1, 2014. Questions should also be directed to that address. Organizers will announce the final program in early May. Funding may be available to assist students who are unable to get support from their home institutions.
Katherine Parker and Yevan Terrien, University of Pittsburgh, co-chairs
Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh, faculty advisor
