A quintessentially liminal space, the beach provokes ideas of margins, exchange and openness. The beach is a site of possibility and unexpected surprise, where anything might wash up, but equally, the beach is unpredictable and often dangerous. It is also a location that defies permanence – its shape is perpetually changing, its inhabitants constantly on the move, a landscape relentlessly in motion. Furthermore, in an Australian context, the beach is a deeply contested site, suggesting a struggle over issues of ownership, belonging, nationality and culture.

Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies is seeking 20 minute papers that interrogate the liminality suggested by the beach, using this image as a springboard to address wider historical and cultural themes. Papers do not necessarily need to address the beach specifically, but will creatively interrogate the concept of the liminal – ‘On the beach’ is intended to be suggestive, rather than prescriptive. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, place and identity, culture and nationality, bodies, boundaries, narratives – both historical and literary, interdisciplinarity, the quotidian, or nature and destruction.

Conference presenters will have the opportunity to submit their papers to Limina to be published as either fully refereed articles (5000 words) in Volume 13 (2007), or a part of an un-refereed conference proceedings (3000 words) which will be published on our website this year.

Presenters should be postgraduate students or early career researchers within five years of receiving their PhD.

The conference will take place on Wednesday 17 May 2006, at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Western Australia.

An abstract of 250 words should be sent to Jo McEwan, Submissions Editor, at limina@cyllene.uwa.edu.au by the 10th of April.

For more information about Limina and the conference, please visit www.limina.arts.uwa.edu.au or email Stacey Fox at foxs02@student.uwa.edu.au