FIRST CALL FOR ABSTRACTS & PAPER & PANEL PROPOSALS

***THE PAST & ITS POSSIBILITIES: PERSPECTIVES OF SOUTHERN AFRICA***

Recent conferences have seen a renewed sense of intellectual and professional commitment to historical scholarship in and about Southern Africa, with vigorous debates about the relevance of history and heritage, and of historians as public intellectuals and citizens of democratic countries. The 23rd SAHS Biennial Conference - to be held on the Howard College campus (Durban) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal between 27 and 29 June 2011 - will build this momentum, and the organisers invite papers and panels around the broad theme of'The Past and its Possibilities: Perspectives of Southern Africa.'

For from abalone, anger and archives through to xenophobia, zombies and zymurgy, the range of topics being researched by historians of Southern Africa is perhaps wider than ever before; and from the singing of revolutionary songs by politicians in the name of cultural history, to oral histories as an instrument of healing, to local histories in the service of grassroots politics and pay-to-order institutional histories, the utility of the past makes it of interest to many parties. New technologies and globalization are also challenging us to rethink how research and publishing can be enabled. The possibilities of the past are thus being explored in multiple ways in the 21st century, with significant implications for historical perspectives of Southern Africa.

Confirmed keynote speakers: Antoinette Burton and Jacob Dlamini

Antoinette Burton of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has published widely on the histories of gender, empire, political culture, world history, and archives. Professor Burton was, with Jean Allman, co-editor of the Journal of Women's History between 2004 and 2010, and is a Guggenheim Fellow 2010-2011. Jacob Dlamini is the award winning author of Native Nostalgia (2009); columnist, and PhD student in History.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words to Julie Parle (parlej@ukzn.ac.za) by 15 December 2010: proposals for panels of 3-4 thematically related papers are especially welcomed.

Further details, including registration deadlines, conference fees, and the announcement of the inauguration of a student prize, will be published on the SAHS website - http://www.sahs.org.za - during December 2010.

Panels, papers, roundtables, discussions and commentaries may reflect on a broad range of perspectives and possibilities including:

- Histories of: any topic of history with an emphasis on new perspectives or former topics revisited.

- Histories to and from: considerations of inter-generational, cross-regional, trans-national and global histories thought about and from Southern Africa

- Histories to hurt or to heal: How can studies of the past speak truth to power, or resist pandering to it?

- The past and its publics, or "histories 'to-go'": in what ways is the past being commodified, ordered, contracted, and deployed for a variety of needs: public, nationalist, institutional, legal and commemorative?

- Histories and historians lost and found: What questions about the past are being asked and which are not? What are taboo, neglected, unfashionable, and/or down-right dangerous historical perspectives and topics; what is current scholarship missing?

- Mediating the Past: film, documentary, art, exhibitions, poetry, news media, and song all draw on and represent perspectives of the past: we encourage discussions and displays from scholars and practitioners in the media, art and cultural sectors who have an interest in the dialogue between past, present and future.

- History's know-how: new information and technological tools; archives in crisis or better opportunities for collaborative projects?

All enquiries to Julie Parle parlej@ukzn.ac.za

*The Southern African Historical Society is committed to fostering the development of young scholars in history and its allied disciplines.*

Julie Parle
Associate Professor
Department of Historical Studies
University of KwaZulu-Natal
Howard College
Mazisi Kunene Road (King George V Avenue)
Durban 4000
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Tel: +27+ (0)31+2602624/2620
Fax: +27+ (0)31+2602621
Email: parlej@ukzn.ac.za