CFP: Annual Meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR SHEAR 2010 -- Rochester, New York

“Contested Terrain and the Early Republic,” the 32nd annual meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, will be hosted by the Rochester Institute of Technology, July 22-25, 2010. The Program Committee invites proposals for sessions and papers exploring all aspects of the history and culture of the early American republic, together with its northern and southern borderlands and international connections, c. 1776-1860. Proposals that reflect the application of new methodologies or perspectives, or that explore new approaches to teaching and to public history are welcome. Given the conference’s location, we particularly encourage papers and panels that address such themes as the emergence of markets and communications; Native American history; Canada and the Great Lakes region; the 1812 War; religious awakenings; slavery, abolition, the underground railroad, and reform movements; women’s rights; urbanization; consumption; visual culture and the origins of photography. We welcome participants from outside the traditional boundaries of the field.

The Program Committee will consider proposals for individual papers and for full sessions; panels with no more than two papers and two commentators are preferred. We also welcome workshops with pre-circulated papers, or sessions in which panelists assess the state of debate on a topic. Each proposal should include a brief abstract of the session, together with a one-page abstract of each paper and a short C.V. for each participant, including the chair and commentator(s). It should also specify any special requirements, such as audio-visual equipment, outlets, or facilities for disability. Any scholar interested in acting as a session chair or commentator should submit a short C.V. Please note that all program participants will be required to register for the conference. The deadline for submissions is December 1, 2009.

Please send submissions to the Program Committee Chair:
Christopher Clark
Department of History
University of Connecticut
Wood Hall, 241 Glenbrook Road, U-2103
Storrs, CT 06269-2103, U. S. A.
c.clark@uconn.edu

Program Committee:
Christopher Clark, University of Connecticut, Chair
Elizabeth J. Clapp, University of Leicester
Catherine Kelly, University of Oklahoma
John Lauritz Larson, Purdue University
Richard Newman, Rochester Institute of Technology
Stacey Robertson, Bradley University
Nikki Taylor, University of Cincinnati
Tamara Plakins Thornton, SUNY Buffalo
Jose Torre, The College at Brockport, SUNY

Hugh Davis Graham Award

(via the AHA Blog)

The Institute for Political History’s Hugh Davis Graham Award provides research stipends for doctoral students, junior scholars, and senior scholars doing archival research in the fields of 20th-century American political/policy history and American political development. This award was created to honor the late Hugh Davis Graham and to promote research in policy history and political history, and provides up to $2,000 for recipients. For more information and instructions on how to apply, see the Hugh Davis Graham award page. The deadline for applications is November 2, 2009.

CFP: Early America & the Atlantic World

Call for papers
EEASA (European Early American Studies Association) biannual conference
December 9-11, 2010, Paris

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/cas/eeasa

Co-hosted by University Paris-Diderot and University Versailles-St Quentin

Place: University of Paris-Diderot (Centers Charles V and Paris-Rive Gauche) and Protestant Institute of Theology in Paris.

"Looking back : The Past, History, and History writing in Early America and the Atlantic World"

The third EEASA conference (Paris, December 2010) invites scholars of early American history and the Atlantic world to reflect on the role of the "past" within the time frame, 1607-1865. These two and a half centuries were often constructed by contemporaries not only through a
teleological, progressive or providentially-motivated perspective, but also in a retrospective mode. The urge to revolve, to have a "revolution" in its original sense of an eternal return to a distant past--the past embodied by a "purer" America, Europe or Africa--was transformed into
idealized beginnings, especially in times of crisis and uncertainty.

These moments include the late seventeenth-century Puritan world as expressed through the jeremiad or the invocation of the "spirit of 76" in the later years of the early republic, as well as by the independence movements in Latin America. For American radicals looking to France, "the
spirit of 1789" was an inspiration when it was feared that the original meaning of the new United States might have been forgotten. Examples also extend to the idea of "the noble savage" for Europeans "imagining" Native Americans, and the idea of an indigenous Afro-Caribbean culture that early Haitian historians posited in seeking the origins of their Revolution.

These are only a few instances of the roles played by the multiple pasts that made up early American and Atlantic history. They are notably reflected in the current interest in commemoration, memory or nostalgia studies and can be looked at through the history of emotions as well as of material culture, or in the tracing of intellectual and political transfers in their transatlantic as well as trans-American dimensions. From a more theoretical standpoint, this wide-ranging topic may lead to philosophical reflections on changing conceptions of history and relationship to time in the formative years, from early providentialism to a need for a common history in the process of post-revolutionary nation-building in the first half of the nineteenth century. More generally, this topic offers a platform for broader historiographical considerations on our practice as historians of early American history and the Atlantic world.

Please send your proposal up to 300 words and a brief resume (one page) to Naomi Wulf (naomi.wulf@univ-paris3.fr) and Allan Potofsky (allan.potofsky@univ-paris-diderot.fr). The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2010. Applicants will be notified whether they have been accepted by the end of February 2010. Preliminary short versions of the papers are due in by November 1, 2010 for pre-circulation. The main language in which the conference will be conducted is English.


Program committee:
Trevor Burnard, University of Warwick, England
Zbigniew Mazur, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Poland
Allan Potofsky, University Paris-Diderot, France
Naomi Wulf, University Sorbonne-Nouvelle, France

CFP: 16th European Forum of Young Legal Historians

Law on Stage

Call for Papers for the XVIth European Forum of Young Legal Historians,
24th-28th March 2010 in Frankfurt am Main

Law appears in various forms. Whether within codes of law, in files, legal documents, by handshake and contracts vis-à-vis a notary, or as finally implemented in courtrooms – law adopts a unique expression. Graceful, sacred, authoritative, and pragmatic: law is being staged.

The European Forum of Young Legal Historians seeks to investigate how these particular forms have emerged and shifted throughout history, and their significance for the legal culture of that time.

Law is only evident through its forms. The perspective of Legal History, however, offers an opportunity to approach this relationship between law and its various forms, where these forms may operate as a facade for normative claims or carry significance on their own. Legal forms emerge from traditions, as a product of shifting legal customs, and through the inherent dynamics of form. Also, legal forms have legitimated new legal contents serving lawmakers’ strategic ends. Change also arises through the action of those subject to the legal norms. So the question to be addressed is: How does law achieve its forms?

This view on the forms of law is also an invitation to reflect on different theoretical and scientific approaches taken in the jurisprudence throughout history. Rules and practices of interpretation, attempts to systematize and integrate legal norms, as well as discussions of the autonomy of law, were also always questions of form. Did one believe in the “pure core” of law behind the form or was the form itself of value? The question we would like to explore is: When and how was the relationship between form and the content of law discussed within jurisprudence?

Finally, the variety of forms evokes questions pertaining to the methodology of legal history. Historical sources can only reveal a fraction of the forms chosen by law in a certain period of time. In order to properly analyse these forms, we usually draw upon thick contextualisation of the subject matter; however, there are a variety of difficulties encountered depending on the period and theme being studied. The Forum should open a space for discussion of such methodological problems; therefore we invite the participants to offer insight and critical reflection on their research method.

We are looking forward to receiving contributions addressing the diverse ways of “staging” law throughout legal history. Please send your abstract (max. 2000 characters) by 16th of November 2009 as well as a short academic CV at frankfurt2010@aylh.org. The regular fee for participants giving a paper will be 50 €, for all other 70 €. We are trying to arrange scholarships.

Further information on the Association of Young Legal Historians and past Forums as well as up-to-date information is available on www.aylh.org.

We look forward to your application and to welcoming you in Frankfurt am Main in Spring 2010.