In May of 2005 the Brown University History Department will hold a two-day conference for graduate students of history and other disciplines on issues relating to gender. Titled “Gender Across Borders,” the conference will examine how gender functions as a category of analysis by examining the thematic, methodological, and theoretical continuities between all scholars of gender and women. To that end, the conference will stress cross-temporal conversations and organize panels around thematically similar but temporally or geographically diverse papers. Panels will feature three papers and one commentary by an advanced student or professor. The conference will offer graduate students opportunities for participation usually reserved for faculty.

Potential panel topics include:

• Gender and Conflict
• Gender and the Nation-State
• Intersections of Gender and Sexuality
• Gender and Labor
• Dialogues of Gender across Class and Race
• Gender and Literature
• Gender, Human Rights, and Development
• Influential Scholars of Gender
• Gender and Place
• Gender and Media
• Gender and the Environment

Students are encouraged to submit their own ideas for panels with the goals of the conference in mind. The list of possible topics above is by no means intended to be exhaustive.

The Conference Planning Committee and the Brown University History Department are pleased to welcome Joan Scott as the Marjorie Harris Weiss keynote speaker for 2005. Joan Scott’s work has challenged the very foundations of historical analysis through her pathbreaking examination of gender. Her most recent work focuses on the vexed relationship of the particularity of gender to the universalizing force of democratic politics. She is currently the Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

Submission Guidelines:

All submissions must be received by January 15, 2005. To submit a paper, please email an attachment in Word format containing an abstract of no more than 250 words and a one-page curriculum vitae. To submit a panel, please email only one attachment containing all of the abstracts and curriculum vitae. The subject of the email must read Conference Proposal and should be sent to the e-mail address given below. We cannot be responsible for submissions that do not meet these requirements.

For more information please contact the Planning Committee or visit our website (web address and e-mail address provided below).

Planning Committee
Brown University Graduate Student Conference
History Department, Box N
Providence, RI 02912