CFP: Berkeley Global and International History (Big-H) Conference (Berkeley, September 2-3)

For our graduate student readers, please see this call for papers for the Fourth Berkeley International and Global History (Big-H) Graduate Student Conference, themed "The Contingency of Transmission: A symposium on transnational movements in ideas, people, and goods."

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 & 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 & 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

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. Proposals must be received by April 21, 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.