Over the last decade, scholarship in Atlantic history has opened new perspectives on older imperial histories, but at the same time often replicates some of the boundaries and limitations of more traditional interpretations of the histories of Africa, the Americas and Europe. This conference seeks to open up questions of method and approaches to Atlantic history and interrogate categories of analysis imported into the field. For example, much attention is given to the diversity and interactions of the ‘European’ Atlantics – French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and British. Yet the terms ‘Brazilian Atlantic’, ‘Mexican Atlantic’,’ Canadian Atlantic’ ‘Kongolese Atlantic’ or ‘Iroquois Atlantic’ seldom appear in scholarship. Scholars are encouraged to suggest papers that interrogate this privileging of European empires and that broaden our understanding and conceptualization of the field of Atlantic History. Recently scholars have begun to question the very nature of the archive as history producing institutions. Special attention will be given to papers that acknowledge the choice of sources made by scholars and that question the privileging of certain voices in the historical record.

Scholars at all stages of their careers are invited to submit proposals of no more than 500 words, related, but not limited, to the broad themes listed below: