We invite proposals from postgraduates and early career researchers for 20 minute papers exploring the theme of colonial celebrations. We encourage applicants to think broadly about celebrations, exploring topics ranging from colonial subjects’ private parties to empire-wide festivities, from triumphant international exhibitions to celebrations of empire presented in print and on film.
Topics allied to any discipline or disciplines are welcomed and may include, but are by no means limited to:
- analyses of the great exhibitions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and their presentation of the imperial world
- considerations of how the empires of different nations celebrated their sense of belonging to empire by participating in festive occasions
- textual analyses of the ways in which empire was presented in music, print media, children’s and adult literature, fine art, newsreels, photography, and film
- explorations of the ways in which empire was celebrated in the private sphere in everyday objects of the home, through letters, and in popular pastimes
- examinations of how subjects of empire, both colonialist and colonized, celebrated personal milestones such as promotions and birthdays as well as religious and national holidays
Professor Robert Aldrich of the University of Sydney, author of Vestiges of the Colonial Empire in France: Monuments, Museums and Colonial Memories, will present a keynote address and teach a masterclass.
The conference will cover the registration fees of speakers. This includes the conference dinner and the drinks reception to celebrate the latest edition of the postgraduate e-journal Ex Plus Ultra, which is tied by theme to the conference. Several travel bursaries are also available on request.
Please send paper proposals of no more than 300 words by 20 June, 2011 to ex-plus-ultra@bristol.ac.uk. Submissions should include the author’s name, institutional affiliation, status (e.g. PhD student), and email address.
See the conference website for further details: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/gradschool/community/conferences/window-of-empire