Department of History congratulates Graduate Program in History for their wonderful New Frontiers conference this past weekend. With 104 presentations organized into 35 sessions, with presenters from as far away as the UK (University of Aberdeen, Newcastle University), the east coast (St. Mary’s University, Boston College), the U.S south (Florida State University, Tulane, the University of Texas at El Paso, California State University), and the west coast (University of Oregon, University of Victoria), the conference comprised a rich and varied program that ranged from pontifical authority in the Roman Republic to dictatorships in Argentina to Jacobite monuments to storms in the 17th-century North Sea to poor children in 18th-century London to Canada’s 20th-century Arctic Jamborees to post-apocalyptic literature and environmental declensionism to the black fashion aesthetic in Playboy magazine. Keynote speaker was the iconic Joan Scott, who did not disappoint with a provocative exploration on the tyranny of sexuality in the discourse of emancipation and equality, an opening plenary on environmental history, and a special presentation on the academic job market and life after graduate school by Sean Kheraj.
We wish to single out the conference organizers — Ashlee Bligh, Madeleine Chartrand, Daniel Ross and Shoshawnah Ross for their excellent job to creating a dynamic, well organized and seamless conference. The Department also congratulates York student presenters, who included both MA and PhD students, and thank those students who helped with the conference in a myriad of ways including chairing sessions, pointing out washrooms, and making visitors feel welcome. This was conference that will be remembered.