Chicago, USA | University of Chicago

We seek papers for a workshop to be held May 13-15, 2015 dedicated to exploring  the relationship between migration and material culture in the modern world (the 18th century to the present), sponsored by the University of Chicago’s Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society.

We welcome paper proposals from both academics (including advanced graduate students) and practitioners—historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, public historians, librarians, archivists, and museum curators—who are working on the intersection between migration and material culture in any region of the world. We hope that selected papers will be
published as a special issue or forum for the American Historical Review.

Both migration and material culture have profoundly shaped societies and cultures across the globe in the modern era. This workshop will define migration broadly, to include intra-state, international and intra-imperial migration, as well as “forced”
and “voluntary” migrations. Our use of material culture is also inclusive, embracing the objects that furnish domestic interiors, architecture, tools, books, toys, clothing, modes of transportation, musical instruments, dance, and even food. The precise relationships between migration and material culture have varied dramatically
across time, space, and political and social context. Our goal is to analyze and thereby be able to explain the diversity of these relationships and experiences.

Possible questions that papers might address include:

– What objects have migrants carried with them, and what can these
objects tell us about processes and experiences of migration?
– How has migration been linked to cultural transfer in the realm of
material culture?
– How have gender and generation been implicated in this dynamic?
– How has migration shaped the production as well as the consumption of particular objects?
– How has migration and return migration been linked to the
transformation of material culture in sending countries?
– How has the circulation of material objects and consumer goods
shaped imperial projects in the 19th and 20th centuries?
– How has material culture been linked to the imagination &
consolidation of diasporic communities and minority cultures?
– What role has material culture played in the politics of migration,
including ideas about “assimilation” and pluralism?
– What can material culture tell us about the emotional and social
experiences of migration?
– How is material culture linked to individual or collective memory of
migration?
– What is the role of material culture in forced migration or population transfers? What happens to the objects left behind in the aftermath of refugee movements?

The three-day workshop will be held at the University of Chicago and will include both open sessions and working-sessions limited to the participants. We will alsobe visiting one or more museum/gallery/installation in the Chicago area. We particularly encourage proposals that engage the public history/historical sites of the city.

Please note that we will require participants to:
– submit their full papers one month in advance of the conference
– provide written comments on a set of related papers the week before the workshop
– be present for the entire workshop

We ask that you both refrain from submitting proposals for work
already published or committed elsewhere and that you agree to
publish in the AHR forum should your paper be selected and the
forum accepted by the journal.

We will cover travel and lodging.

Interested participants should send a 500 word abstract, an article or chapter (ms. or published on a related topic) and C.V. to tzahra@uchicago.edu and lausland@uchicago.edu by June 15, 20

The three day workshop will be held at the University of Chicago and will include both open sessions and working-sessions limited to the participants. We will also be visiting one or more museum/gallery/installation in the Chicagoarea. We particularly encourage proposals that engage the public history/historical sites of the city.

Please note that we will require participants to:

– submit their full papers one month in advance of the conference
– provide written comments on a set of related papers the week before the workshop
– be present for the entire workshop

Interested participants should send a 500 word abstract, an article or chapter (ms. or published on a related topic) and C.V. to tzahra@uchicago.edu and lausland@uchicago.edu by June 15, 2014.