This international conference is specifically designed to enable graduate students from North America and elsewhere to share current research with fellow students and faculty members in a number of fields. In the past, the Plesur Conference has hosted student papers from a variety of disciplines, including, but not limited to, History, American Studies, English, Comparative Literature, Classics, Global Gender Studies, African-American Studies, and Disability Studies.

The GHA is pleased to announce that the keynote speaker will be Dr. Paul Deslandes, Associate Professor of History at the University of Vermont in Burlington. Specializing in British history, the history of the British Empire, and the history of gender and sexuality, Dr. Deslandes’ published works include Oxbridge Men: British Masculinity and the Undergraduate Experience, 1850-1920 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005) and a forthcoming publication entitled, The Culture of Male Beauty in Britain, 1840s-Present. His keynote address will outline the selling of the male body in Britain during the 1950s and 60s, and British pornography in the 1970s and 80s. In keeping with this theme, yet expanding to incorporate a range of disciplinary backgrounds, the GHA is seeking papers that critically interpret the past through various theoretical approaches that incorporate an array of geographic locations and time periods. Papers from any discipline and discussing any geographic region, time period, and topic are welcome. The GHA would also like to encourage students to submit proposals that complement the central aspects of Dr. Deslandes’ work (masculinity, sexuality and modern Britain).

Please send your proposal, including a 250 word abstract (with title), curriculum vitae or brief academic biography, contact information, and audiovisual needs, if any, to Averill Earls (averille@buffalo.edu). Preference will be given to those papers received during the early submission period (ending November 15, 2011). The final deadline for submission is February 1st, 2012.