Call for papers – Violence and the Mind – Fifteenth annual McGill-queens graduate conference in history – McGill University in Montréal – 1-3 March 2018

CALL FOR PAPERS – Violence and the Mind

Fifteenth annual McGill-queens graduate conference in history, to be held at McGill University in Montréal, Québec, Canada, 1-3 March 2018

The foundational role played by violence in forging and re-shaping human society can be readily discerned within the study of slavery, colonialism, gender & sexuality, economics, revolution and military history. Indeed, questions regarding violence, whether they be immediate or latent, manifest across the many subfields of historical inquiry. And yet, to think about violence historically is a daunting task, requiring study across an immense spectrum of geographic and temporal horizons. Scholars who make such an attempt often find themselves further challenged in defining the conceptual parameters of violence itself. Studies of epochal and generational violence often turn to the question of embodiment, while studies of trauma or structural violence may choose to leave the body behind entirely. The theme of the 2018 McGill-Queen’s Graduate Conference in History, “Violence and the Mind”, provides a platform for graduate students to situate these problems as they continue to explore violence historically by foregrounding the interior lives of historical subjects. We welcome emerging scholars from across the disciplines to present research that questions how violence is produced, elaborated, interpreted and experienced by the mind. We encourage proposals that present historiographical, theoretical, and comparative approaches to such forms of violence across a variety of regions and time periods. Hopeful participants should propose 15-20 minute presentations that speak to the following questions and themes: How are the interior lives of human beings shaped, historically, by violence? What distinguishes violence committed against bodies from violence committed against mi.? How can historians study the relationship between violence and subjective experience? Who is distinct (and what is similar) about violence produced or directed towards the mental realm? To what extent can the various subfields of history, which explicitly study violence, be approached together when inner experiences are taken as the point of departure? How can the notion of structural violence contend with individual psychologies?
Potential areas of enquiry may include (but are not limited to):

• The history of ideology.

• The history of psychoanalysis

• The history of medicine, including psychology and psychiatry.

• Colonialism

• Slavery

• Racism and Critical Race Theory

• Military history, including trauma

• Queer theory and the history of sexuality and gender

• Philosophy of Mind

• Disability Studies

• History of emotions

• Indigenous studies, reconciliation and settler colonialism.

Please submit an abstract of no more than 400 words as well as a brief academic biography in Word or PDF format to mcgillqueens2018@gmail.com by 8 december 2017.

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