Berkeley International and Global History Conference
The Contingency of Transmission
Fourth Berkeley International and Global History (Big-H) Graduate Student Conference
September 22-23, 2017
3335 Dwinelle Hall
UC Berkeley
Never has global history been as relevant, among both disciplines that study the global and fields of historical research. Even as the transmission of ideas and capital has reached new peaks, resurgent anxieties about the permeability of national boundaries have initiated profound policy changes regarding migration and international trade. These topics have also refreshed scholarly and popular debates that have raged for decades. As in the past, we may see a retrenchment of patterns in globalization that before seemed inexorable. This contingency of global integration only speaks to the need for historians to engage international dynamics with humility toward the power and specifics of change. We encourage submissions that address these issues from a variety of temporal and spatial perspectives.
The Fourth Big-H Conference will consist of panel discussions, running 20 minutes. Each presentation will be followed by a short reflections by a faculty commenter arranged by the conference organizers. Rather than a typical conference paper, we seek broad but concise overviews of dissertations-in-progress. While example, detail, and texture is of course welcome, the bulk of each presentation should focus on overall arguments and major scholarly interventions. We envision the Big-H conference as an opportunity for emerging scholars to engage a diverse audience of different methodological, geographic, and period specialties and ‘test drive’ their largest claims and interventions. Q and A will follow presentations and comments. Big-H will also include a roundtable discussion on teaching global history.
Papers may address a variety of themes, including but not limited to:
- Medicine, Public Health, and Microbes
- Capital, Development, and Multinational Corporations
- Human Rights in Theory and Practice
- Codifying and Enforcing the Law Globally
- Diasporas throughout Time, from Beringia to the 1990s
- Local Resistance to Centralizing and Global Forces
- International and Regional Organizations
- Globalization Before or After the State
- Imposing Cartographic Order on Borderlands and Frontiers
- Attempts to Control the Natural World and Environmental Impacts on Human Society
- Transmission of Science and Knowledge across Borders
- Violence and the Global Arms Trade
- Migration, Refugees, and Human Trafficking
This conference will consider the creation and elaboration of ideas and ideologies from diverse perspectives and time periods - from antiquity to the recent past. We invite papers from graduate students and postdoctoral students that engage the history of ideas, ideology, and how they are realized in culture, politics, economics, science, gender, and society. Scholars working in any subfield and any time period are encouraged to apply.
Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars who are interested in participating in the conference should submit a 350-word proposal and one-page curriculum vitae (in Word, RTF, or PDF format) to bighist@berkeley.edu. Presenters will also pre-circulate their paper drafts. We will not accept panel proposals. Applications must be received by 21 April 2017, in order to be considered. Notification of acceptance will be made in early May. For additional information, please e-mail the conference organizers at bighist@berkeley.edu
Previous Conferences
- 2015: Ideas and Ideology in the Global Past (Call for Papers and Conference Program)
- 2013: Actors and Agency in the International Past (Call for Papers and Conference Program)
- 2011: Integration and Disintegration in International History (Call for Papers and Conference Program)
Please send any questions or comments to: bighist@berkeley.edu