Capital Region Underground Railroad Conference

The Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region will hold its ninth annual conference at Russell Sage College in Troy in February. Considered &#8220the gold standard of Underground Railroad conferences&#8221 the conference brings together a wide spectrum of scholars, authors and interested laymen. This year’s keynote speaker will be Rhonda Y. Williams, Associate Professor at Case Western Reserve University and a History News Network &#8220Top Young Historian.&#8221

Each year the conference attracts over 300 attendees each year and features presentations by academic and nonacademic speakers providing a unique opportunity for younger scholars to take part.

The call for papers is here in pdf, and the stated deadline for proposals is October 1st, but word has it that proposals will be accepted after that date.

Dutch Colonial Clergy Conference Announced

The Reformed Church Center of New Brunswick Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, N.J. will co-host an event titled The Colonial Clergy Conference: Dutch Traditions and American Realities with the Collegiate Church of New York, the Van Raalte Institute in Holland, Michigan, the Roosevelt Study Center in Middelburg, Netherlands, and the Reformed Church in America Archives. Planned as part of a larger celebration this year of Henry Hudson’s voyage for the Dutch to the Hudson River and New York, it is an international event being held September 27-28th at the Haworth Center at Hope College in Holland, Michigan and October 24th at First Reformed Church, 9 Bayard St., New Brunswick, N.J. Additional information about registration, etc. can be found on the website: http://www.nbts.edu/clergyconference/

In Holland, Michigan, the speakers will be Dr. Leon van den Broeke, Assistant Professor in Religion, Law and Society and Director of the Center for Religion and Law at Free University in Amsterdam, The Netherlands- Dr. Willem Frijhof, Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at Free University- Dr. Hans Krabbendam, Assistant Director of the Roosevelt Study Center in Middelburg, The Netherlands- Dr. Earl Wm. Kennedy, Senior Research Fellow and Professor of Religion Emeritus at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa- Dr. Firth Haring Fabend, Fellow of the New Netherland Project and Historian for The Holland Society of New York,- and Dr. John Coakley, L. Russell Feakes Memorial Chair and Professor of Church History at New Brunswick Theological Seminary.

Speakers in New Brunswick, New Jersey will include Dr. Leon van den Broeke- Dr. Joyce Goodfriend, Professor of History at the University of Denver- Dr. John Coakley- Dr. Dirk Mouw, past Albert A. Smith Fellow at New Brunswick Theological Seminary- Dr. Firth Haring Fabend, and Dr. Robert Naborn, Director of the Dutch Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Also included in the day is a tour of the church’s historic cemetery and bell tower, lunch, and an opportunity to order a book which will be based on the papers presented. First Reformed Church was founded in 1717 and the current building dates to 1765.

America’s First River: The Hudson A Conference

America’s First River: The Hudson A Conference Celebrating the 400th Anniversary of Henry Hudson’s Voyage in 1609 will be held on September 25-26, 2009 at the FDR Presidential Library and Marist College. The Conference is sponsored by The Hudson River Valley Institute, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the Hudson River Valley Greenway, the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area, the National Park Service, and the New York State Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial Commission.

For information, a schedule of speakers and events, and reservations email [email protected] or call 845-575-3052 or visit www.hudsonrivervalley.org

CFP: 2010 Agricultural History Conference

While I normally stick to New York history exclusively here, sometimes a national (or even international) conference comes up that promises to inspire New York historians toward greater understanding of the state’s history. The 2010 Agricultural History Conference &#8211 Local Stories, Global Connections: The Context of Agriculture and Rural Life &#8211 at the University of Central Florida and Rollins College on June 10-12, 2010 is one of those events thanks to New York’s important role in national and international agricultural history.

Here is the announcement:

Agriculture and rural life are tied to specific places, but those places are in turn bound to larger communities, often with global connections. The Agricultural History Society (AHS) invites proposals for papers that address the particular ways in which
people and places have shaped agriculture and rural living in their local communities as well as how rural ecosystems, production, processing, and consumption tie farmers and rural people to distant people, places, and institutions. Topics from any location or time period will be welcome. In the interest of promoting understanding of
the context of agriculture and rural life, the program committee wishes to encourage submissions of interdisciplinary and cross- national panels. We encourage proposals of all types and formats, including traditional papers/commentary sessions, thematic panel discussions, roundtables on recent books, and poster presentations, and we extend a special welcome to graduate students. We are able to provide up to $250
in travel reimbursement to each graduate student whose paper is accepted for the conference. We will consider submissions of full panels and individual papers, as well as paired or individual posters.

Submission Procedures

Complete session proposals should include a chair, participants, and, if applicable, a commentator. Please include the following information: An abstract of no more than 200 words for the session as a whole- a prospectus of no more than 250 words for each presentation- a mailing address, email, phone number, and affiliation for each participant- and a CV of no more than a page for each participant.

Individual submissions should include all the above except a session abstract.

Please send submissions, in Microsoft Word or RTF format, to [email protected].

Alternatively, applicants may mail five hard copies of their proposals
to:

Melissa Walker, Chair
Converse College
580 East Main St.
Spartanburg, SC 29302

Please direct questions regarding the program to any member of the program committee:

Melissa Walker, Chair, Converse College, [email protected]
Joe Anderson, Mount Royal College, [email protected]
Sterling Evans, University of Oklahoma, [email protected]
Angie Gumm, Iowa State University, [email protected]
Cecilia Tsu, University of California at Davis, [email protected]

Researching NY Conference Deadline Extended

The deadline for submitting proposals for the Researching New York Conference has been extended to July 10th.

DEADLINE EXTENDED

Researching New York 2009
November 19 & 20, 2009
University at Albany, SUNY

The organizers of the annual Researching New York Conference invite proposals for panels, papers, workshops, roundtables, exhibits, documentary, and media or multimedia presentations on any facet of New York State history -in any time period and from any perspective. The conference will be held at the University at Albany, Albany, New York, on November 19th and 20th, 2009.

We especially invite proposals that explore and interpret not only the exploits of Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain, but the many kinds of exploration that have taken place in the ensuing 400 years of New York State’s rich and diverse history-including consideration of how we remember, celebrate, interpret, and commemorate historical events.

We are also soliciting commentators for panels. If you would like to participate as a commentator, please send a note to [email protected] indicating your area of expertise, along with a one-page vita.

Researching New York brings together historians, researchers, archivists, museum curators, librarians, graduate students, teachers, Web and multimedia producers, and documentarians to share their work on New York State history.

Presentations that highlight the vast resources available to researchers of New York State history, as well as scholarship drawn from those resources, are encouraged.

Proposals are due by July 10, 2009. Full panel proposals, workshops, roundtables, exhibits, film screenings and media presentations are welcome. Partial panels and individual submissions will be considered. For panels and full proposals, please submit a one-page abstract of the complete session, a one page abstract for each paper or presentation, and a one-page curriculum vita for each participant. Individual submissions should include a one-page abstract and one-page curriculum vita.

Submissions must include name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address. Please submit your proposal electronically to [email protected]. All proposals must note any anticipated technology or audio visual needs.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact us at [email protected]. Further details and program updates will be available at http://nystatehistory.org/researchny.

Researching New York is sponsored by the Department of History and the History Graduate Student Organization, University at Albany, SUNY and the New York State Archives Partnership Trust with support from the M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections & Archives, University at Albany Libraries.

Henry Hudson, New Netherland, and Atlantic History

Dr. L.H. Roper, Professor of History at SUNY New Paltz and a scholar of international reputation in the field of Atlantic History has announced a symposium, &#8216-Henry Hudson, New Netherland, and Atlantic History&#8216-, at SUNY New Paltz the weekend of 25-26 September, 2009. This host two-day international symposium on “The Worlds of Henry Hudson” is expected to be the premier intellectual event held in conjunction with the celebration of the quadricentennial of Henry Hudson’s exploration of the Hudson River. Leading historians from the Netherlands, France, and Germany, as well as the United States will present papers on a series of topics related to Hudson and his times.

The program will include panel discussions, teaching workshops, and two luncheon addresses over two days to be held on the campus of SUNY New Paltz., as set forth below. At each session, two-to-three presenters will give talks on topics closely related to the character of the European exploration and colonization of the Hudson Valley, which arose from Hudson’s voyage, and the historical significance of the issues generated by these phenomena.

The emergence of the transatlantic perspective during the last two decades is a major development in the study of the history of Europe, Africa and the Americas during the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The scholars invited to this conference are among the major figures in advancing this perspective. The conference program is designed to provide an opportunity for the further integration of their work, and its advancement through publication of the papers it generates and by providing a means for secondary and elementary school teachers to incorporate this scholarship into their own classrooms.

A second goal, equally important, is to further the integration of the African, American Indian, and European contexts (“the transatlantic perspective” or “Atlantic history”) into teaching and learning about exploration and “colonial America” in our schools. The conference structure provides for interaction in each session among leading scholars of early modern Africa and Europe and of American Indian societies and current and future elementary and secondary school teachers.

The cost of registering for this conference will be $20/day and $15 per luncheon session. Teachers who wish to attend, with the exception of those in Ulster, Dutchess, and Orange Counties, should register through the Center for Regional Research, Education, and Outreach at SUNY New Paltz. The costs for attending the symposium will be payable directly to CRREO.

Teachers in Ulster, Dutchess, and Orange Counties who wish to attend one or both days should register via MyLearningPlan. Teachers in other counties should register through the Center for Regional Research, Education, and Outreach at SUNY New Paltz. Professional development hours are available for approval. The first fifty teachers who sign up and who have been participants in the Ulster BOCES Teaching American History Summer Institute for at least one week will have their registration fee paid by the TAH grant. Ulster BOCES will notify those registrants that their fee has been paid.

For further information, please contact Lou Roper of the Department of History at [email protected].

Museum Institute at Sagamore Application Available

The 2009 Museum Institute at Sagamore, sponsored by the Upstate History Alliance, will focus on Understanding Audiences. The Institute is a reflective, intensive, four day retreat at Great Camp Sagamore in the Adirondacks that gives New York State museum professionals the opportunity to learn, reflect, and work with their colleagues from across the state.

The 2009 institute will take place September 22 &#8211 25th. Acceptance to the institute is by application, the postmark deadline is July 17, 2009. To download an application, please click here. For more information on the Museum Institute at Sagamore, please visit our website www.upstatehistory.org and click on What’s New.

CFP: Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 1750-1850

The Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 1750-1850 (CRE) is a venue for the presentation of original reserach on not only the revolutionary history of Europe, but also the Atlantic World and beyond. We welcome proposals from allied disciplines and comparative studies- in short, the conference offers a platform for research into the revolutionary era broadly defined.

The 2010 conference will be held February 25-27 at the College of Charleston and the Francis Marion Hotel, located in the center of Charleston’s historic district. The conference venues are within easy walking distance of Charleston’s eighteenth- and nineteenth-century urban core, its museums, waterfront, and many exceptional restaurants.

The program committee prefers proposals for complete sessions (three papers, plus a chair and a commentator). However, we will accept proposals for incomplete sessions and individual paper proposals. Session proposals should include name of presenter, title of paper, and brief abstract (no more than one page) for each paper- and brief CVs (no more than 2 pages) for each participant. The deadline for proposals is October 15, 2009. We welcome traditional presentations of new research as well as roundtable discussions and pedagogical panels. Proposals from doctoral students are welcome. Electronic submissions should be sent in Word format.

Send proposals to:
Professor Carol Harrison
Department of History
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
[email protected]

Travel and accommodations:
Reservations should be made at the Francis Marion Hotel, located at 387 King Street, Charleston, SC 29403, which will serve as the conference hotel. To make your reservation and to obtain the group rate discount, call either 843-722-0600 or 1-877-756-2121 and state that you are attending the annual meeting of the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era. The deadline for reserving a room is January 26, 2010. The room rate for CRE participants is $169.00 per night, plus tax.

Charleston International Airport is served by AirTran, American Eagle, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United Express, and US Airways.

For more information about visiting Charleston, please see the Charleston Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (www.charlestoncvb.com).

CFP: 1763 and All That, The Decade After The Seven Years War

1763 and All That: Temptations of Empire in the British World During the Decade After the Seven Years’ War &#8211 a call for papers for a conference to be held on February 25th and 26th, 2010, at the University of Texas at Austin, sponsored by the Department of History’s Institute for Historical Studies.

The focus of the conference is the British Empire during its &#8220decade of crisis&#8221 between the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763 and the passage of the Tea Act ten years later. Over the course of this decade, Britons drastically transformed the way they viewed themselves and their empire. For the first time, British imperial policy extended to the governance of the French Catholic inhabitants of Canada, the Native people of the trans-Appalachian interior of North America, Africans in the new colony of Senegambia, and the twenty million inhabitants of Bengal subject to the authority of the East India Company.

In Britain itself, the governance of this vastly extended empire engendered an enormous amount of bitter debate and anxious discussion in the halls of power as well as in the popular press. Among historians of each of the different parts of the British World, this decade has long been seen as one of crucial importance.

However, while invaluable work has been done to examine British and indigenous relations and exchanges in specific colonial contexts, as well to examine connections between the metropolis and specific colonial regions, there has been as yet few attempts to interrogate the links across and between the colonial regions and to set developments in particular regions into the context of the transformation of the British Empire as a whole. The organizers aim to address this need by bringing scholars working on various aspects of the British World into dialogue and debate over the causes and character of the imperial transformation of the 1760s and early 1770s.

Submissions are invited for individual papers on these themes. Note that the conference will be organized around the discussion of pre-circulated papers. Accepted papers must be submitted for circulation to participants no later than February 1, 2010. Each proposal should include a brief precis of the paper topic and a clear indication of how the paper will undertake to connect the specific research subject to larger events and processes taking place across the British Empire. The deadline for receiving proposals is September 1, 2009.

Paper proposals (as well a brief C.V.) should be submitted via e-mail to the conference organizers, Robert Olwell and James Vaughn, at: [email protected]. Send all queries to the same address.

CFP: 11th Annual Researching New York Conference

Founded by history graduate students, Researching New York, an annual conference on New York State History, is one of the major endeavors of the History Graduate Student Organization and the History Department. This is a great opportunity for graduate students to present a paper on ANY aspect of New York State history.

Even if your primary work does not focus on New York State history, often it is possible to work from a seminar paper or a small section of your work that has connections to a New York issue or theme. You can contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions about the presenting your work at the conference. The program Committee will review the proposals in July and you will be notified whether your
paper or panel is accepted shortly thereafter. You can see previous programs at the Conference Web site, http://nystatehistory.org/researchny.

The organizers of the 11th Annual Researching New York Conference invite proposals for panels, papers, workshops, roundtables, exhibits, documentary, and media or multimedia presentations on any facet of New York State history&#8211in any time period and from any perspective. The conference will be held at the University at Albany on November 19th and 20th, 2009.

To mark the upcoming Hudson-Champlain Quadricentennial, for Researching New York 2009, we encourage submissions that speak to the conference theme, 400
years of Exploration: the Hudson-Champlain Corridor and Beyond. We especially invite proposals that explore and interpret not only the exploits of Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain, but the many kinds of exploration that have taken place in the ensuing 400 years of New York State’s rich and diverse history-including consideration of how we remember, celebrate, interpret, and commemorate historical events.

Researching New York brings together historians, researchers,archivists, museum curators, librarians, graduate students, teachers, Web and multimedia producers, and documentarians to share their work on New York State history. Presentations that highlight the vast resources available to researchers, as well as scholarship drawn from those resources, are encouraged.

Proposals are due by June 28, 2009. Full panel proposals, workshops, roundtables, exhibits, film screenings and media presentations are welcome. Partial panels and individual submissions will be considered. For panels and full proposals, please submit a one-page abstract of the complete session, a one-page abstract for each paper or presentation, and a one-page curriculum vita for each participant. Individual submissions should include a one-page abstract and one-page curriculum vita. Submissions must include name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address. Please submit electronically to [email protected]. All proposals must note any anticipated audio visual needs.