CFP: 3rd annual Place and Placelessness Online Workshop

The New Scholars group of the Network in Canadian History and Environment would like to invite submissions for the 3rd annual Place and Placelessness Online Workshop, taking place October 18-19, 2012.

This online symposium is intended for graduate students and recently graduated scholars from all disciplines that seek to better understand the complex relationships between nature and culture, with particular attention paid to the theme of climate. The workshop attempts to replicate the collegiate atmosphere of a shared-space meeting by using a variety of internet tools, including WordPress, Skype, Google Maps, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter to share ideas and participate in engaged discussion. This model should appeal especially to those who are eager for academic gatherings without the cost or carbon footprint of in-person meetings. The workshop encourages participation from students across the humanities, social sciences and physical sciences in an attempt to facilitate trans-disciplinary and transnational dialogue for global issues such as anthropogenic climate change.

Although the expectation is that most submissions will come in the form of in-progress pieces of writing, the organizers welcome submissions of alternative multi-media projects that utilize online tools to stimulate arguments about our relationship with local, regional, and transnational environments. All interested presenters must submit a CV, as well as a 300 word abstract outlining their topic, what format their contribution will take, and how their paper or project aims to broaden, illustrate or complicate the notion of ‘climate’ by September 4th, 2012.

The theme of climate is loosely defined, and may include perspectives on:

governance and policy history
environmental history and industry/industrialization
histories of activism or environmentalism
global climates, international relations and geopolitics
historical climatology
histories of ecology, geology or geophysics
primary source documents in climate history
climate regions (such as arctic or tropical)
new digital climates and virtual communities

The organizers would also like to invite others not submitting papers/projects to ‘attend’ the workshop as participants. This two-day event will take place entirely online, using Skype to communicate, and the website to provide access to the program, papers, presentations, blog posts, feedback, and links to relevant websites. All participants will receive a FREE Skype headset. The workshop has no registration fee, but only limited space, so sign up early.

If you would like to contribute a paper or project, or would like to simply participate in the discussions, please register by sending emails to workshop co-chair, Mike Commito (commitma@mcmaster.ca). A full schedule will be announced September 15th, 2012.