Global Maritime History Conference “Maritime Toxic Masculinity”

23 Jul 2018

by Samuel

Maritime Toxic Masculinity

We are pleased to announce that www.GlobalMaritimeHistory.com will be holding its first digital conference “Maritime Toxic Masculinity” in April 2019.

Perceptions, depictions, expressions and performances of masculinity are an important part of maritime topics and have been discussed, for example, at the “Maritime Masculinities” conference held at Oxford Brookes University in 2016. For this conference, we are seeking to discuss the influence of the concept of ‘toxic masculinities’ on the history and interpretation of maritime history. We invite papers that explore the ways in which standard forms of masculinity have obscured the interpretation of maritime histories, or ways in which standards of masculinity had a negative impact on the lives, strategic effectiveness, leadership, and relationships of men or women with connections to maritime service. This conference is designed to be interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary, global and span all of history.

Subjects for the Conference may include but are not limited to:

Hagiography, the making of naval heros
Emotions, masculinity, and warfare
Punishment and Discipline
Leadership
Male relationships in close confines
The pitfalls of maritime historiography
Maritime social rituals (Equator crossing, superstitions, etc.)
Sea shanties, films, theatre, and literature
Port towns and communities
Identity and nationhood

What is a Digital Conference?

This is an online conference, and will be implemented using audio records (effectively podcasts) as well as any visual guides such as images or presentations. The recordings will be uploaded to this website, and their release will be staggered over a period of time like at a conference. The format of this conference allows for incredible flexibility in terms of the length of the program. As such, we very much encourage graduate students, early career and independent researchers to submit proposals, and we would like to emphasize that the term ‘broadly conceived’ pertains to both “Maritime” and “History”.

We are looking for:

Proposals for individual presentations, which will be roughly 20 minutes in length and will be grouped into "panels"
Panel proposals that consist of 2-4 papers. (To be recorded individually)
Proposals for group discussions of approximately 45 minutes in length
Proposals for other content for this conference, including written blogposts and videos are also encouraged

Further Details:

Speakers will retain full control of their content, including the ability to remove it from the website in the future at their request.
Presentations can be about completed research, works-in-progress, or methodological and theoretical discussions.
The organizers will be able to provide some technical support in terms of audio editing if needed.
If this CFP gives you an idea, but you think it's too far-fetched or improbable, then please do contact the organizers. We'd love to work with you to make your idea possible.
We will absolutely consider proposals for papers in languages other than English.
We are considering several options for providing opportunities for presenters to be asked questions, and it will likely involve comments on posts, as well as interaction through Twitter.

We are also open to collaborating with other projects, groups and institutions in order to make this digital conference as successful as possible. Please send all proposals and questions to the organizers Dr Samuel McLean, Kelsey Power and Sarah Pickman at toxicmasculinityconference@globalmaritimehistory.com. Proposals should be submitted to that email address by 1 December 2018.