Shaped by the Sea: The Maritime World as Transformative for Work, Culture, Ideas, Networks
St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, August 17-18, 2023
Historians have long emphasized the significance of the maritime as a transportation vector between global regions, between metropole and colony, and between networks of commodity extraction and production sites. The 2023 meeting of the Canadian Nautical Research Society seeks papers with a focus on the maritime world as transformative, shaping the objects, ideas, and people who travelled by sea. Maritime workers, vessels, and the ports that connected ship to shore left indelible impressions upon the people and objects that passed through their midst, reshaping ideas on land but also impacting the maritime world itself.
The 2023 CNRS Conference will take place in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, on August 17-18. A vibrant port and a region of significant maritime transformation as a military station, fishery, and a gateway to the North Atlantic and Arctic, Newfoundland and Labrador continues to be shaped by the proximity of its peoples to the sea.
The Conference will be a hybrid meeting, hosted in-person at the site of one of the British Empire’s largest archives of working men’s documents, Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Maritime History Archive. The MHA’s collection includes the bulk of Britain’s crew agreements created between 1863 & 1972, as well as important collections of maritime documents and photographs from Newfoundland and Labrador.
Proposals on other maritime topics from all time periods are also welcome. We invite interdisciplinary and inter-professional proposals from speakers who will contribute to the diversity of our discussions and community. Presenters must be members of the CNRS/Scrn by the time of the conference. Memberships are available at rates starting at $30 CAD, $25 CAD for students and early career researchers. Please visit https://www.cnrs-
scrn.org/membership/index_e.html.
New scholars are encouraged to apply for the Gerry Panting Award for New Scholars to assist with expenses associated with travelling to the 2023 CNRS Conference in St. John’s, NL. Details for this award are available at: https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/books_and_awards/panting_e.html.
Submissions should be sent to Dr. Meaghan Walker, conference moderator, at mwalker@mun.ca, and should include the presenter’s name, institutional or professional affiliation (optional), title of the presentation, an abstract of 250 words or less, and a biographical note of 100 words or less. The deadline for submissions is February 20, 2023
