HGSA CONFERENCES:

2009:

Tension in Scholarship and Society

Brown University Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference
Providence, Rhode Island April 17-18, 2009
Featuring Keynote address by Ben Kiernan
Whitney Griswold Professor of History and Director, Genocide Studies Program, Yale University

Tension is central to scholarly endeavor; indeed, it is often the need to resolve tension that generates development and innovation. Certainly since the French Revolution, scholars of all stripes have been concerned with tensions between social and economic classes. These concerns were intensified by the influence of the thought of Karl Marx, which also did much to advance a view of historical development with dialectical tensions at its core. More recently, questions of race, gender and sexuality have become key, as scholars investigate the roots and consequences of the tensions apparent in social life. Postcolonial studies, moreover, extends this study of societal tensions into the realm of the intellectual, probing at the dark sides of the Enlightenment and imperial Europe's 'civilizing missions.' This is, of course, to say nothing of the tensions at the center of traditional avenues of study such as the analysis of warfare, high politics and diplomacy.

2007:

Intellectuals and the Academy in Public Life

Brown University Graduate Student Conference
Providence, Rhode Island May 4-5, 2007
Featuring Keynote address by Linda Gordon
Professor of History at New York University

At a time when the Academy is under intense scrutiny - from both the left and the right - about its real or perceived political role, our conference seeks to explore and contextualize the following questions. What is the role of the intellectual in public life? How has that role varied in different cultures and historical periods?

2006:

Space as a Category of Analysis: New Perspectives with keynote address by Dr. David Harvey, Distinguished Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, City University of New York

Date: Friday April 7 and Saturday April 8, 2006
Location: Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
Submission Deadline: January 15, 2006

The Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference at Brown University is entitled “Space as a Category of Analysis: New Perspectives” on April 7-8, 2006. This conference seeks to bring together graduate students from diverse fields by discussing a common research theme from multiple disciplinary angles. We welcome scholarship from history, sociology, anthropology, geography, urban studies, environmental studies, area studies, gender studies, media studies, and others.

Some of the critical questions conference papers consider are: How are spatial categories historically constituted, and how do historical projects reify and challenge spatial categories? How do spatial relationships guide the growth and development of individual communities, informing human understandings of nationality, ethnicity, gender, race, class, and the environment? How are categories such as urban, rural and wilderness constituted, and how are they informed by technology and their inhabitants? How does space shape decision-making processes of individuals and institutions, and in what ways has space been used to assert power? Under what conditions has space been transnational?

The conference features a keynote address by internationally renowned scholar David Harvey. Widely considered to be the founder of modern critical geography, Dr. Harvey's wide-ranging explorations of the ways in which space and time have underpinned capitalism, post-modernity, and imperialism speak directly to the spirit of intellectual breadth and inclusion to which the conference is committed.