Tag: conferences

CFP: Medievalist Librarians in Technical Services

I’m looking for archivists and librarians who have a background in Medieval Studies to join a hybrid roundtable discussion at next year’s International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan (May 9-11, 2024). If you held a technical services role (considered broadly) at any point in your career, and you studied any aspect of the Middle Ages, please consider participating! You can reach out to me directly (allie.mccormack@utah.edu) for more information.

Official session blurb: “Library technical services – including collection development, cataloging, and processing – is not well understood by the public. However, teaching, research, and other services offered by libraries would not be possible without this behind-the-scenes work. Presenters will shine a light on technical services roles, explain the skills needed for success in these positions, and share how their medievalist backgrounds influence their work.”

If you know anyone else who may be interested, please share this widely. Proposals to join the roundtable must be submitted through the official conference portal: icms.confex.com/icms/2024/cfp.cgi.

——————————
Allie McCormack
Salt Lake City UT

CFP: Archives of Revolution:  A Conference About How We Make the Past

June 20-22, 2024
The John Carter Brown Library
at Brown University

As we approach a series of 250th anniversaries, the histories of the American Founding have never been more hotly contested. In the United States, historians regard 2026 with some trepidation and a lot of determination to educate a wary public about the importance of evidence to the interpretation of the past. With nationalist movements—who tend to appropriate founding narratives for their own political purposes—on the rise around the world, histories of the international revolutionary era are equally fragile and fraught elsewhere. Indeed, the difficulty of addressing these pasts might lead to avoiding history altogether in a lot of the 250th commemorations.

In this challenging context, the archives of revolution pose both opportunity and imperative for 2026. Creating, exploring, promoting, preserving and most of all critically engaging with the nature and process of archives and archiving helps us to understand the past that we’re making. As archivists, literary scholars, librarians, historians, and more, we all interact with and help shape the past through its material and textual remains. Sharing more about the process of making archives of revolution, of using them, and of their changing nature in the twenty-first century, prompts new conversations about the past.It is also a way, we hope, of engaging scholars, archivists, and the public in a civil conversation about who owns it, has owned it, and who shapes it.

Just as the bicentennial of 1976 set in motion an array of documentary editing projects, we now find ourselves in a new and dramatically different evidential landscape, one shaped by the digital humanities, a more capacious Atlantic context for the American Revolution, and a half century of fresh scholarship. Archives of Revolution—a hybrid gathering of historians, curators, archivists, and educators—will be a forum for a major reconsideration of the foundation of Revolutionary history.

A collaboration between the John Carter Brown Library on the campus at Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania’s McNeil Center for Early American Studies and Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts this conference will be a forum for scholars, archivists, and educators from around the Atlantic to address the state of the archive, its interpretation, its preservation, and its dissemination.

We invite proposals for papers and roundtables, and panel discussions around the following three themes:

  1. Collecting and privilege: What is an archive and how do archives come to be?  How do archival priorities shape Revolutionary histories? How do the unequal resources of institutions around the Atlantic affect our ability to write global Revolutionary histories? 
  2. Interpreting the archive: How has the nature of the archive or our understanding of what constitutes an archive shaped histories of Atlantic Revolutions? How does any archives’ focus relate to effort to write transnational or global Revolutionary histories? What has been the impact of scholars’ “archival turn”?
  3. Access and discovery: How has the expansion of archives, especially digitally, impacted our understanding of the Atlantic’s age of revolution? What are future directions for expansion—transnationally, multi-lingually, intercontinentally—as archives become more accessible and as archival datasets yield new insights? What strategies can we use to improve access and discovery beyond the Global North? What were the historic barriers for diverse scholars trying to access archives and in what ways is access still unequal?

SUBMIT A PAPER OR SESSION
Deadline: August 15, 2023.

The conference is chaired jointly by Emma Hart of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, Sean Quimby of UPenn Libraries, and Karin Wulf of the John Carter Brown Library.

For more about Archives of Revolution:
https://ageofrevolutions.com/2023/03/20/archives-of-revolution/ 

Call for Research: International Conference on the Inclusive Museum

Seventeenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, Austria, September 13 – 15, 2024. 

Founded in 2008, The Inclusive Museum Research Network is brought together by a shared concern for the future role of the museum and how it can become more inclusive. We seek to build an epistemic community where we can make linkages across disciplinary, geographic, and cultural boundaries. As a Research Network, we are defined by our scope and concerns and motivated to build strategies for action framed by our shared themes and tensions.

The Seventeenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum calls for research addressing the following annual themes and special focus: 

  • 2024 Special Focus—Intersectionality: Museums, Inclusion, and SDGs
  • Theme 1: Visitors
  • Theme 2: Collections
  • Theme 3: Representations

Contact Email: support@cgnetworks.org

URL: https://onmuseums.com/2024-conference

CFP: Artefacts XXVIII National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, Japan, October 8–10, 2023

Call for Proposals for the conference

ARTEFACTS XXVIII “Wide-Angle and Long-Range Views”

ARTEFACTS is an international network of academic and museum-based scholars of science, technology and medicine interested in promoting the use of objects in research. The network was established in 1996 and since then has held annual conferences examining the role of artefacts in the history of science and technology and related areas.

For the first time in its history, ARTEFACTS goes to Asia this year. The twenty-eighth conference will be held at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, Japan, October 8–10, 2023. The meeting will be in-person.

A gathering in Japan, where “Western” science and technology have been transferred to the unique culture of a long tradition, must provide an opportunity to reflect on the processes and consequences of globalization once again after the severest years of COVID-19. In addition, the Japanese National Museum of Nature and Science comprises both natural history and the history of science and technology, and, if combined, it will be an ideal place to reflect on human activities in much longer “history” of nature. When the authors of The History Manifesto insisted on long-term thinking (Guldi and Armitage 2014), one of the commentators contributing to Isis pointed to the absence of museums in their discussion, concluding that “we urgently need the wide-angle, long-range views only historical museums can provide” (Söderqvist 2016). In a broad interpretation, we will pursue this possibility based on museum objects and other artefacts.

We invite papers that explore topics such as, but not limited to

  • Global circulation or transnational motion of objects/collections of science and technology, especially related to East Asia
  • Role of artefacts not only in connecting, but also in disconnecting transnational circulation of knowledge
  • Role of local crafts and historical materials in communicating contemporary science and technology in a globalized world
  • Scientific, digital and other approaches to long-term history complementing text-based historical studies
  • Intersections between history of science and technology and natural history at large, including the history of universe and the history of earth
  • Museum practices (exhibitions, in particular) and theoretical considerations of presenting wide-angle and long-range views on history for public audiences

ARTEFACTS conferences are friendly and informal meetings with the character of workshops. There is plenty of time for open discussion and networking. Each contributor will be allocated a 20 minutes slot for her or his talk, plus ample time for questions and discussion. Please send a proposal for papers (ca. 500 words) along with a brief CV to artefacts2023@kahaku.go.jp no later than June 30, 2023. Please remember that the focus of presentations should be on artefacts.

We are also pleased to announce that we have decided to offer some funding to defray the costs of participating in the meeting, mainly for early-career scholars. To apply, please send the following information to artefacts2023@kahaku.go.jp by May 21:

  • Name, institution, and short CV
  • Tentative title and short abstract (max. 100 words) of your proposal
  • Tentative itinerary, including the estimate of your anticipated airline, train, or other travel costs to Japan.

If you plan to receive other funding for your travel, please include the details.

Important dates:

  • May 21, 2023                          Deadline for application to the supplementary travel fund
  • June 30, 2023                          Deadline for abstract submission
  • July 14, 2023                          Notification of acceptance of paper and announcement of awardee of the supplementary travel fund
  • July 21, 2023                          Publication of the provisional program
  • October 8–10, 2023                Conference in Tokyo

Contact Info: 

Nobumichi ARIGA
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Language and Society, Hitotsubashi University
Affiliated Researcher, Department of Science and Technology, National Museum of Nature and Science
2-1 Naka, Kunitachi, Tokyo 186-8601, JAPAN

Hiroto KONO
Curator, Department of Science and Technology, National Museum of Nature and Science
4-1-1 Amakubo, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0005, JAPAN

Contact Email: artefacts2023@kahaku.go.jp

URL: https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/our-work/research-public-history/artefacts-consortium/

CFP: ICAMT-ICOM 49th International Conference: Undoing Conflict in Museums: materiality and meaning of museum architecture and exhibition design

The University of Porto will host the 49th International Conference of ICAMT-ICOM next October 25th to 27th. The event will be co-organized by the Center for Transdisciplinary Research “Culture, Space, and Memory” (CITCEM) and the Center for Studies in Architecture and Urbanism (CEAU). The conference’s central theme is “Undoing Conflict in Museums: Materiality and Meaning of Museum Architecture and Exhibition Design.” Participants will focus their discussions on the power of conflict exhibitions and the role of architecture and exhibition design in managing conflict in museums.

The conference offers the option to select from multiple round table discussions that will focus on four key themes:

(HOT) TOPICS                     
Key Theme 1 – Dealing with Conflict                                                                                                                          Key Theme 2 – Symbols of Conflict                                                                                                                          Key Theme 3 – Processes and Conflict                                                                                                                    Key Theme 4 – Healing, Resistance and the Future

Applicants to this event will be able to do so through the following presentation formats:                 

  • Paper Presentations – They will be face-to-face and last 15 to 20 minutes (max.).
  • Digital Posters – Static image (jpeg, jpg) for online display.
  • Short-Videos – Presentation of 8 to 10 minutes for online viewing.

All submissions and presentations (oral presentations, posters, short videos) must be made in English.

Proposals must be sent to the following email address: icamtporto2023@gmail.com by May 31, 2023 (midnight GTM)

Other important dates are:

July 5, 2023 – Communication of acceptance or rejection of the proposal.

September 5, 2023 (midnight GMT) – Deadline for final papers, posters and short videos submission.

Contact Email: icamt2023@gmail.com

URL: https://id.letras.up.pt/icamt2023porto/

CFP: Taboo in Cultural Heritage: Reverberations of colonialism and national socialism

Theme description

In the spring and summer of 2020, a wave of statue defacements and removals spread across the world. As part of the Black Lives Matter protests, monuments in many countries were labeled as inappropriate due to their relationship with colonial histories and racial injustices. This ‘burdened heritage’ was considered taboo: something that should not have a physical presence in public space. In that same year, as a direct reaction to the Black Lives Matter protests, the exhibition Are Jews white? (Jewish Museum, Amsterdam) tried to break a taboo by discussing color and the question of where Jews find themselves in the identity politics spectrum of Black and White.

Soon after, a controversy about the ‘uniqueness’ and ‘comparability’ of the Holocaust arose: ‘Historikerstreit 2.0’ as it was frequently called, with reference to the debate of the late 1980s. A number of historians pointed to the taboo against challenging the ‘uniqueness’ of the Holocaust by comparing it with colonial violence, which is also present in the memory of these histories in today’s society (e.g., in monuments, exhibitions, restitution issues, debates about apologies and reparations, etc.).

Taboo is a subject, word, or action that is avoided or forbidden for religious, social or political reasons. Although there are certain taboos that appear to be virtually universal, most taboos vary with cultures and times. Objects, sites, or practices appropriated as cultural heritage, can at a later moment in history be redesignated as problematic, no longer conforming to certain norms and values. Conversely, (former) taboos can be contested, eventually triggering the ‘heritagization’ and display of hitherto banned objects and sites.

Unsurprisingly, taboo and tabooed issues get less attention in humanities and heritage practices than the canon or the canonized. However, canon and taboo could be considered two sides of the same coin; they are interdependent. For that reason alone, it is important to address the subject of taboo as well, and not turn a blind eye to it. For example, the canonization of modernist art after World War II went hand in hand with tabooing art produced under National Socialism. Nowadays, there is a renewed interest at museums in exhibiting these works, sparking controversy and debate.

This international conference aims to reflect on the concept of taboo in relation to cultural heritage in the context of colonialism and national socialism and their reverberations in society. What can the dynamics of taboo convey about today’s globalizing world? How have taboos shaped (and continue to shape) and impacted the process of cultural heritage making? How do taboos generate heritage dissonance (Tunbridge and Ashworth, 1996)? How does the concept apply to ‘difficult heritage’ (Macdonald, 2009)? How do/could/should cultural heritage professionals deal with questioning the display, adjustment or removal of such ‘burdened heritage’, and is every heritage professional and scholar ‘allowed’ to address every topic?

Paper submission

We welcome abstracts for papers from all humanities and social sciences. It is our contention that by focusing on taboos in cultural heritage from an interdisciplinary and international perspective, they will become, again, negotiable.

Apart from emerging and senior scholars in academia, we also invite heritage professionals to present a paper. They are often at the center of public debates, and need to take a position on tabooed issues in their daily practice. Professionals might benefit from current academic discourse and vice versa. We are looking for theoretical and philosophical approaches, terminological and conceptual reflections as well as representative case studies from all disciplines.

Artistic contributions:
We also warmly invite proposals for contributions from artists working with the themes of the conference. Formats to share artistic research are open but might include workshops, films, and performance-lectures. However applicants should be aware that we do not have capacity to provide extensive technical and production support.

Proposals may include, but are by no means limited to:

  • Issues of taboo and transgression;
  • Interrelationships between tabooization and canonization;
  • Tabooed cultural heritage related to national socialism and (post)colonialism;
  • Rejected heritage;
  • Tabooing art and cultural heritage for political and ideological reasons;
  • Stigma and taboo;
  • Taboo and positionality (Global North/South; gender and sexuality);
  • Taboo in museology;
  • Looted art and restitution.

Confirmed keynote speakers

  • Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (Stellenbosch, South Africa)
  • Sharon Macdonald (Berlin, Germany) 

Practical information

Abstracts max 400 words and biography max 150 words can be sent to taboocongress@gmail.com.

Deadline: 1 August 2023. The conference will take place on 1 and 2 February 2024 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

We will publish contributions of this conference in a peer-reviewed edited volume.

Organized by the Open University of the Netherlands; Reinwardt Academie, University of the Arts; and the University of Amsterdam.

Contact Info: Gregor M. Langfeld and Judy Jaffe-Schagen

Contact Email: g.m.langfeld@uva.nl

URL: https://www.ou.nl/en/international-conference-taboo-in-cultural-heritage

CFP: 2023 Dress and Body Association Conference

Though not archives-specific, this CFP mentions museums.

The Dress and Body Association invites submissions for the organization’s fourth annual conference, which will be held on November 4-5, 2023. Consistent with our long-term goals for inclusivity and sustainability, all activities will be 100% online, including keynote speaker(s), research presentations, and opportunities for virtual networking.

Visit the DBA website—www.dress-body-association.org—to learn more about this organization and consider becoming a member.

Climate Change: Implications for Dress and the Body

For English speakers, there are two major definitions of “climate” as a noun:

  1. The characteristic weather conditions of a country or region
  2. The attitudes or conditions prevailing among a body of people

Curiously, we use the term “climate change” primarily (if not exclusively) in connection with deteriorating environmental conditions. Yet human bodies and dress are also… and have always been… impacted by changing “attitudes or conditions.” What changes happening today are having the greatest or most pertinent impacts? How are these changes affecting different “bodies of people” (societies, cultures, organizations, communities, etc.)?

Proposals for a paper or a virtual roundtable discussion on any topic related to dress and the body will be considered, but those related to this year’s theme are most likely to be accepted. Changing “attitudes and conditions” may include but are not limited to:

  • Technological innovations (e.g. AI-generated dress/bodies, biodegradable/fungal dress, biomimicry)
  • Politics and political activism (e.g. bodies of intersectional solidarity)
  • Circumstances of violence, conflict, and migration
  • The physical environment and attitudes about it (e.g. consequences and adaptations to anthropogenic climate change)
  • Cultural standards and ideals of beauty (e.g. “sexy” bodies or “healthy” bodies)
  • Implementation (or revision) of laws and dress codes (e.g. reproductive rights, gender diversity, labor rights)
  • Changes in education that impact future artists, designers, creators, and inventors
  • Changes in industries (fashion, theater, advertising, healthcare, media, museums, etc.)

Both beginning and advanced scholars are welcome. Abstracts should be 200-300 words. Presenters do not need to submit a paper before the conference. Depending on the number of submissions and the time zones of presenters, each person should have approximately 20 minutes to speak with discussion at the end of each panel.

Although we welcome scholars, educators, and activists from any country, the language of the conference will be English. We will consider a panel in an alternative language if there is sufficient interest from a group of scholars. Abstracts must be written in English and should be drawn from original research; we ask that presenters not simply recycle papers given at other conferences. Pre-recorded presentations are allowed, but presenters must join the Zoom meeting to hear the other speakers on the panel and participate in the discussion in real time.

For best consideration, please submit your abstract by July 1, 2023. All submissions will be read by at least two reviewers in a single-blind review process. Authors can expect letters of acceptance by mid-August.

Registration through the DBA website will be required for access to the online platform. Donations are welcome, but not required to participate. The recommended donation is 20 USD for students and early-career scholars, 50 USD for mid-career and senior scholars.

To submit an abstract: dress-body-association.org/abstracts
To register for the conference: dress-body-association.org/conference-registration

The Dress and Body Association is registered as a non-profit organization (501(c)(3)) in the state of Indiana (United States). Donations are tax-deductible.

Dress & Body Association | dress.body.assoc@gmail.com

Call for Volunteers: Volunteers needed to introduce topics at the Metadata and Digital Object Section annual meeting

The Metadata and Digital Object Section will hold its annual meeting virtually on Thursday, June 15th from 11am to 12:30pm CT (mark your calendars now!).  In addition to a business meeting, we are planning a program that will include breakout discussion groups on three topics that members have expressed interest in during recent mailing list discussions and focus groups:

  • Challenges with mass description of digital objects
  • What kind of metadata do we create about provenance?
  • Metadata about potentially harmful material in digital collections

We are looking for volunteers who would be willing to give an informal, five-minute introduction to each topic and help facilitate the breakout room discussions (there will also be a steering committee member to help with the latter).  The idea for the 5-minute presentations  is to introduce the topic and raise a few of the major questions that could be asked in the breakout session for that topic, to give people an idea of what might be discussed.  

If you have an idea for a different topic you think would be of interest and that you’d be willing to introduce, we are also interested in hearing about that. 

Please email Lara Friedman-Shedlov (ldfs@umn.edu) by May 1st.

CFP: Association of Registrars and Collection Managers

November 7-10, 2023 Montreal, Quebec, Canada

ARCS welcomes registrars, collections specialists, and all those who work within our field to Montreal, Quebec, Canada for educational sessions, networking events, and a chance to meet colleagues from around the world. 

Important Dates

  • March 20, 2023 – Request for Proposals Opens
  • April 21, 2023 – Session Proposals are due. 
  • Late Spring 2023 – Registration fee structure to be announced
  • November 7-10, 2023-Conference

Looking for inspiration for the upcoming request for proposals? Take a look at the scheduled from our 2022 Virtual Conference

Call for Proposals

The past three years have profoundly impacted our field and demonstrated the need to evolve and adapt our practices. This journey reaffirmed our resilience and taught us to positively channel the momentum created from this time of reflection and growth. We are now catalysts and agents of change within our own institutions and the greater field, using our momentum to create a more just future. Momentum encourages us to find new ways to partner with communities, create more accessibility, and reduce our carbon footprint while still stewarding collections. Sustaining momentum is challenging but necessary to move forward, creating new pathways for effective, smarter, and more resourceful solutions. 

ARCS invites you to submit proposals and join an international discussion about the collections field for the 2023 Conference, Momentum, to be held in Montreal Canada on November 7th-10th. Sessions may address any aspect of your work. Proposals must be submitted no later than 11:59 PM EST, April 21, 2023. To learn more about submitting a session proposal please view the guidelines. Please contact Conference@arcsinfo.org if you have any questions.  

Please view the 2023 Proposal Submission Guidelines before submitting your proposal.

CFP: Oral History Network of Ireland Annual Conference 2023

The Oral History Network of Ireland (OHNI) is pleased to announce its 2023 conference on the theme of ‘Oral History: Power and Resistance’. At every stage of the process, oral history projects may be impacted by and engage with issues of power and resistance. Oral histories offer unique insights into the operations of power and resistance in our societies in the past and present. This is not confined to issues of political power and resistance but can include everything from power dynamics within personal relationships, to understanding minority-majority group experiences. Who exercises power, how it is used and how it can be leveraged are key questions for oral historians. Similarly, what is resistance, what forms it takes and how it may or may not effect social change are questions that have been explored with the assistance of oral histories. Power and resistance are also considerations at every level in the creation of an oral history – whose stories are told, how they’re told, the power (or lack thereof) exercised by interviewees and interviewers, and the purpose of oral history itself.

The conference will take place at Dooley’s Hotel, Waterford on Friday 16th and Saturday 17th June 2023.

We are delighted to welcome Graham Smith, Professor of Oral History at Newcastle University, as the keynote speaker. His research interests include public history and environmental oral history, with a particular focus on how people remember in groups, as well as the history of family and the history of medicine. He helped to establish the Oral History Unit and Collective at Newcastle in 2017. A long-time trade union activist, Graham is the joint editor of the Historians for History blog and the editor of the four-volume collection Oral History, published by Routledge in 2017 as part of their Critical Concepts in Historical Studies series.

Call for Papers

Conference contributions are welcome in a range of formats:

  • Standard conference papers (20 minutes)
  • 10-minute presentations for our ‘Moments’ panels, focusing on outstanding or memorable individuals, experiences, and/or incidents that influenced or changed the way the presenter practices oral history. Contributions showcasing new projects on the conference theme at an early stage of development are also welcome here.
  • Posters and visual presentations

We welcome proposals on any topic related to oral history, particularly those that take an imaginative approach to the conference theme of ‘Power and Resistance’. Potential topics could include (but are not limited to):

  • Power dynamics in the interview
  • Oral history and marginalised voices
  • Elite oral histories
  • Uncovering the operation of power in organisations and institutions
  • Abuses of power
  • Resistance and adaptation
  • Power, resistance and trauma
  • History from above and below
  • Power, resistance and the archive
  • Oral history and empowerment

To propose a paper, please submit an abstract (of not more than 250 words) along with your name, the name of your group, organisation or institution, and your email address to info@oralhistorynetworkireland.ie before Friday 28th April 2023. All proposals must demonstrate a clear engagement with oral history and/or personal testimony and we actively encourage the use of audio or video clips. The conference committee’s decision on successful abstracts will be communicated to potential presenters in May 2023. Information regarding registration for the conference will be posted in the coming weeks.

For further information, please see our website (https://oralhistorynetworkireland.ie/2023-conference) or the PDF of the call for papers (https://oralhistorynetworkireland.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CFP2023.pdf). Questions may be directed to info@oralhistorynetworkireland.ie.