[We have the following announcement.]
The Nicholas D. Chabraja Center for Historical Studies at Northwestern University announce “Walls and Bridges: Migration and Its Histories,” a Graduate Student Conference to be help on Friday, April 12, 2019. The deadline for proposals is Monday, January 14th 2019.
The recent resurgence in nativist and populist ideologies has reframed and intensified global discourse on migration, citizenship, and societal inclusion. Reviving old nativist slogans and well-worn xenophobia, contemporary political actors and social movements have given new voice to restrictionism, racism, and extremism for the sake of social control and national security. Left in the balance are vulnerable communities of immigrants, migrants, and refugees, all of whom are adversely affected, if not gravely threatened by policies and legislation intended to discriminate, exclude, and expel.
We invite papers on any historical aspect of these themes for any period and place. In historicizing the current sociopolitical moment, we anticipate the conference will explore the historical antecedents of populism and nativism, the role of the past in molding the present, and the ways our work as historians can contribute to informed and open-minded discourse, both in the academy and the public sphere. In this regard, we particularly welcome papers that connect historical work to contemporary activism.
The conference will occur on April 12th, 2019 on Northwestern’s campus in Evanston, Illinois. The keynote speaker will be Professor Erika Lee, Director of the Immigration History Research Center and Chair in Immigration History at the University of Minnesota. You may read more on Professor Lee here.
Please send a paper proposal of no more than one page (250 words) to conference convener Aram Sarkisian (aramsarkisian2012@u.northwestern.edu) by Monday, January 14th, 2019. A committee of Northwestern history faculty will select papers. Upon acceptance, conference papers of 10-12 pages will need to be submitted by Friday, March 29th, 2019, in time for review by faculty panel commentators. Conference presentations will be limited to 10 minutes to encourage discussion.
