Hello all. I wanted to use my normal blog space to talk briefly about some important changes to the Call For Papers for the 2019 Society of U.S. Intellectual History Conference. Dr. Linda Kerber’s comments expressed during the American Historical Association conference–on the need for conferences to always allow for single paper submissions to accommodate graduate students who may not yet have made the connections necessary to create full panels–sparked discussion among the S-USIH Conference committee to bring back single paper submissions for our conference.
As such, the S-USIH Conference Committee is pleased to announce that we are once again allowing single-paper submissions. The CFP has been updated to show this. Also, the comments section below can be used by scholars to network with one another to help in the process of creating full panels for submission to the conference this November. We at S-USIH want to make the conference submission process as fruitful as possible for a wide range of scholars, no matter their rank, experience, or current institution.
Again, feel free to use this comments page to coordinate potential panels–and also remember that we are once again accepting single-paper submissions.
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Colleagues,
I’m interested in putting together a panel/roundtable that would focus on intersections of health, wellness, ideas, and the history of thought. I would like for it to go in one of two potential directions:
1. How to better teach specific USIH topics intersecting with health/med/sci, or,
2. Exploring the history of higher/grad/prof edu in relation to intersections involving intellectual history and health/med/sci.
For the first I would explore teaching strategies involving the concepts (and meaning) of both humanism and professional mistreatment (specifically in relation to med edu). How does a humanistic approach to teaching the ideals of professionalism, and ideas about the same, help with graduate education, in medicine and generally? I’d probably focus on case studies as teaching instruments.
For the second, I would explore the idea of mistreatment in higher education–how it has changed over time in relation to the professionalization of the academy, and the advent of professional schools/education. My focus would be on the actions, ethics, and morals of instructors in medical education.
This is all nebulous. But I’m game to work with people in my orbit. – TL
Hello Everyone,
I am looking for two more presenters for a roundtable on the intellectual history of conferences (I am co-organizing the roundtable with Gregory Jones-Katz). We want to tackle a couple of core questions about the history of conferences: how did they come to prominence? what were they for? who were they for and who was excluded? what are some of the key differences between types of conferences (academic v. political, for example)? Finally, we hope to discuss the future of conferences. Should academic conferences continue? Are political conferences dangerous in a world that increasingly seems to marginalize non-elite voices?
We will, of course, tailor the panel abstract to the interests and backgrounds of the other presenters. If you would like to be involved or just want to hear more, please email me at [email protected]. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Best,
Matt
I am seeking an additional member for a panel on Liberalism and Modernization/Modernity during the JFK years. Our focus is predominantly domestic (U.S.), but American ideas that were intended to be exported or applied elsewhere are also fair game (the time period need not be rigidly confined to the early 1960s exclusively).
Although the term modernization is most often applied to foreign policy and liberalism is usually discussed in political contexts, we are eager to include a paper that relates social liberalism or cultural modernity to alternative venues or diverse areas of study. We will especially welcome contributions involving race, gender, the arts, entertainment, lifestyles, technology, public or organizational planning, and so forth—as long as a genuine connection with liberalism/modernity can be demonstrated (if past conferences are any indication, there will be several panels specializing in religion and in education, so we are not encouraging these topics in this case). Finally, I am hopeful that the makeup of this panel can reflect S-USIH’s commitment to diversity of participants.
Please contact Drew Maciag at [email protected] if interested in proposing a paper or to propose your services for chair/comment. Thank you!
Hi all,
I’m interested in putting together a panel that, in very general terms, deals with how various actors protested the Cold War.
My paper would look at how faith-based organizations led trips to Central America in the 1980s to publicize the American government’s actions abroad and discourage further intervention in the region. I plan on using the many accounts written by religious activists who traveled to the region to bear witness to atrocities committed by U.S.-backed dictators to show how the anti-interventionist movement developed a moral critique of U.S. involvement in Nicaragua and El Salvador.
A wide range of topics would be a good fit for the panel, including opposition among religious figures/groups, liberal or conservative critics, and many more. If interested in putting together a panel, please email me at [email protected]
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Brian
We are seeking a third paper for a panel examining debates about what constitutes humanity or the human being in the twentieth-century, with attention paid to the political dynamics of this debate. One paper will be “Humanism in a Technocratic Age” examining radical and conservative critics of technocracy and potentially tapping into the rival definitions of humanism articulated by Isaac Asimov and Kurt Vonnegut in the late twentieth century. I will be examining earlier efforts by conservative intellectuals, such as Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More, to define a new intellectual synthesis for a secularizing era that would somehow capture the expanded sense of human consciousness evident in the nineteenth-century Emersonian tradition and yet not eventuate in the progressive mentality to powerful among early twentieth-century academics.
Proposals are welcome. Please contact me, Paul Murphy, at [email protected] if you are interested.