Remembering Academic Freedom in the United States

Reported on Bluesky:

So Northwestern University, an institution with a $14.3 billion endowment, pulled support for the 2026 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders, and Sexualities (the “Big Berks”), forcing the organization to cancel the meeting. Such cowardice on Northwestern’s part.  

Apparently the Board of Governors of Northwestern University has announced the university can no longer host a conference of women historians, given the political situation in the United States of America. 

Apparently no other potential host site can or will step up to take its place. As a result, the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians has cancelled the 2026 session of its triennial "Big Berks' conference, a huge event that has brought together women historians of all topics and backgrounds since the 1930s. 

It was usually held in the eastern US but gathered in Toronto about ten years ago, where if I recall correctly it was directed by Franca Iacovetta of the University of Toronto.

Conference news: Nonfiction writers in Vancouver

The annual conference of the Creative Nonfiction Writers Collective, the country's leading organization devoted to the craft of nonfiction prose, will be held on the UBC Campus in Vancouver June 14-16.

Writers attending include Darrel J. McLeod, author of Masaskatch, winner of the nonfiction GG last fall; recent memorists Elizabeth Hay (All Things Consoled) and David Chariandy (I've Been Meaning to Tell You), and essayist extraordinaire Helen Humphreys, who will give the keynote.  Plus Alicia Elliott, Charlie Demers, Alanna Mitchell (SeaSick), Cheline Knight, Monique Gray Smith, Lindsay Wong, and others.  Master classes, manuscript evaluations, nonfiction as theatre, and more.  Plus me in various supporting roles, as I'm one of the organizers.

Details and registration (some sessions open to the public)  at the CNFC website.

What is a twitter conference?

Short, I guess. Really brief papers.  Spare a thought for all those conference-goers who always write a 50-minute paper for their 20 minute slot!

Actually, I haven't a clue.  But Active History is organizing one for August 24-25.  "Beyond 150: Telling Our Stories."  They promise "to diversify the historical narrative and uplift marginalized historical perspectives."  Deets are here.

Here's an idea

The Canadian Studies Network, meeting at York University in Toronto in October 2017, has out a call for papers: 150 Ideas That Shaped Canadian history

The main geographical area is Canada, and the time period is the last 150 years. Proposals might deal with one of the following topics listed below but are not limited to these. We encourage papers that go beyond conventional understanding and conceptualizations of Canada.

TOPICS (Listed in alphabetical order)

Anti-radicalism; Bannock & Poutine; Beer; Body Checking & Curling Brooms; Canoeing; Citizenship; Civilization/Savagery; Class struggle; Colonization; The Common Good; Communications; Compact; Conservation/Preservation; Cultural subjugation; Creation/Re-creation; The Crown; Dead ducks; Dependency; Dominion; Equality; Exploration; Freedom; Gender; Gender equity; History, Memory, and Heritage; Humour; Honest Broker; Ideologies; Immigration; Mosaic; Middle Power; The North; Otherness; La Patrie; Nationalism & National Policy; Peace/Order/Good Government vs Life/Liberty/Pursuit of Happiness; Performance; Quiet Revolution; Responsibility & Responsible government; Risk Aversion; Solitudes and Bridges; Self-governance; Sovereignty; Staples; Survival/Survivance; Surveying/Surveillance; Symbols; Technology; Toques & Parkas; Trail; Transportation; War; Weather; The West

The weather is one of the 150 great Canadian ideas?

Update: Here's another topic.  Should there be a 150th anniversary medal?

Creighton at the Creighton Lecture in Toronto, April 9

This year the University of Toronto History Department's Creighton Lecture will be held not only in memory of Donald Creighton but about Donald Creighton.  The Creighton lecturer on April 9 will be Donald Wright, discussing Creighton and his biography, Donald Creighton: A Life in History.

The Creighton will this year be part of a daylong seminar, in association with the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, on biography and on what the organizers describe as History that Actually Gets Read. Speakers will include Christopher Dummitt, Stevie Cameron, and Ross King.

The lecture and conference will be held at Victoria College on the U of T campus.  Full details and poster available here from the History Department.

Active History conference, London, ON, in October

Active History, the lively multi-contributor HistBlog, is holding a conference at Huron College in London on October 2-4.  New Directions in Active History will review the mandate of the website and assess the process of "active" history, which broadly refers to historical work that reaches out into public discourse and policy deliberation.

Beyond being a constant reader, I have no connection to the website, but they've invited me to be a panelist at one of the sessions.

IdeaCity in Toronto

I once gave a talk at IdeaCity, the "where ideas have sex" conference held annually in Toronto by host and entrepreneur Moses Znaimer. This year they were kind enough to invite me, as a past presenter, to be their guest for the whole of this year's conference, now on, and even bring a guest.

Well, I'm missing most of it because sometimes a living must be earned, but it's a pretty nifty event, and I'm happy to trade a shout-out for their generous invitation. This year the whole conference is available online, including, I guess, this morning's session on the epidemiology of the Black Death and the Plague of Justinian.

If they need a historian sometime, and you're it, don't decline the invitation.

What we talk about when we talk about Canadian History

Dates noted in Papers, CHA 2004-2013

In preparation for the 2013 meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, held the other day in Victoria, Tom Peace of Active History has undertaken some quantitative analysis of papers given at the conference in the last decade.

....although the attention of historians shifted away from political, economic and military interests towards more social and cultural subjects, their broad topical interests remained the same. The Canadian historical community continues to spend considerable energy on questions related to war, empire and politics. Perhaps, it seems, the shift in historiographical emphasis has not been as significant as often made out. 

And the emphasis on 20th century subjects remains overwhelming.

The whole thing is worth a look.. Makes me wonder how this blog would stand up to his kind of analysis....

(Chart from Peace's essay)

Public History in Ottawa

The (American) National Council for Public History brings its AGM to Ottawa April 17-20, with a program heavily influenced by the Canadians on the program committee, and welcoming participants.  Info, program and registration details here.

Conferences sooner and later; black history, public history

Contributing to the many and diverse events of the War of 1812 bicentennial, Brock University in St. Catharines  -- in cooperation with York University's Harriet Tubman Institute, the Central Ontario Network for Black History, the St. Catharines Museum, and others -- is hosting a workshop entitled We Stand on Guard for Thee: The African Canadian Experience in the War of 1812.


It's May 10 and 11, 2012 and I'm told that due to late funding, they have been slow to publicize and would welcome later registrants.  More information is available from the Tubman, and the links for online registration are there too. 

Meanwhile, Michelle Hamilton of the public history program at Western University in London reminds me of the (American) National Council of Public History's annual conference, to be held in Ottawa in April 2013:

The NCPH is a membership association of museum and archivist professionals, consultants, teachers and students, cultural resource managers, government historians, film and media producers, historical interpreters, policy advisors, and many others. While academics do come to our meetings, it is wonderfully open atmosphere and all types of historians, teachers and the interested public attend and find camaraderie. We hope that many Canadians interested in history will attend.

All the details will be on the conference website. 


Update: Active History, noting its third anniversary with a thoughtful retrospective on historyblogging, also launches a series leading up to another 1812 conference, the "Whose War Was It, Anyway?" sessions in Waterloo May 30.

Who was livebloggin' the CHA meetings?

You would think that a lively, opinionated, and digital-savvy crowd like the historians of Canada (yes?) would have been liveblogging and posting from the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association, which ended Sunday.

Well, no, it seems. The CHA's own site still reports the meeting as forthcoming. But Matt Hayday has a comment at his blog.

1812 and community building

Next month the Niagara 1812 Bicentennial Legacy Council will host a "Creating 1812" conference in Hamilton, Ont., -- -- "commemoration, national identity and role of the arts." Looks impressive.

Andrew Stewart [not "Smith" as I originally wrote], chair of the Fort York Foundation in Toronto, who drew this to my attention, notes:

I think it's interesting how cities are learning to combine heritage and the arts - and not just heritage generally but specifically the War of 1812, which might be considered difficult and obscure, but is a seminal event in southern Ontario's history. Also interesting and encouraging that First Nations (specifically the Six Nations) are part of this effort given their important role in the war. The idea of commemorating the bicentennial is leading to renewal of historic alliances between First Nations and other Canadians -- at least on the creative and arts front.

Anniversaries you might not have noticed.

2010 marks the 300th anniversary of the death of Pierre-Esprit Radisson and the 125th anniversary of the death of Louis Riel.

But joking aside, these people have connected the two events with a pretty imaginative conference theme: voyageurs and Metis from Radisson to Riel.

Forty years on...

.. and there is still a remarkable dearth of good books on the October Crisis of 1970. But Carleton university School of Canadian Studies is planning a conference on the subject for, yes, next October. At least certain aspects of it, anyway.

Although we acknowledge that the FLQ was forged from a widely shared post-colonial perspective (at its beginning), the conference also seeks to highlight the influence/impact of the left, unions and universities, and gay and feminist liberation groups in Quebec.

Don’t bogart that paradigm

If you really experienced the sixties, you are not supposed to remember them. Fortunately, we have historians.

Carleton University in Ottawa will hosts a symposium on sixties history on November 14, 2009, featuring as keynote speaker Dimitry Anastakis, editor of The Sixties: Passion, Politics and Style. The organizers sum up the issues in language that should be saved for some future conference on early 21st century scholarly discourse: “A proliferation of conferences, anthologies and surveys of the period have prompted an interrogation of the parameters and meaning of the once-paradigmatic decade.”

They welcome participants. “This symposium aims to bring together senior doctoral students, recent graduates and junior faculty members working on topics related to the 1960s experience in Canada broadly defined…. The symposium organizers welcome 200-word abstracts for 20-minute presentations to be submitted electronically by September 15, 2009 (sixties[dot]symposium[at]gmail[dot]com)."

(h/t to H-Canada)

The great issues in the great north

The Lafontaine-Baldwin lecture on "issues related to the public good," inspired by John Ralston Saul and sponsored by the Dominion Institute, goes to Iqaluit this Friday to feature Siila Watt-Cloutier. Wish I were there, but we can see it live on film in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal (indoor and outdoor), Winnipeg, and Calgary. Filmed by Zacharias Kunuk, no less. All the details here.

Brian Young Conference in Montreal

Brian Young, the about-to-retire history professor at McGill, has been a productive and stimulating writer on Quebec history for a long time. His core works have been rather specialized and technical, I suppose, not bestseller material. Even his biography of George-Etienne Cartier is anything but a conventional admiring biography; it's mostly a close, tough analysis of the business and class interests of the "Montreal bourgeois."

One book that shows off Professor Young's methods and skills is his 1994 study The Politics of Codification. It sounds, ah, unpromising, I know: a book-length analysis of the mid-19th century revision and codification of Quebec's French-derived civil law into the Quebec Civil Code. Okay, it's not easy going, but there is a profound analysis here of a great political, legal, social, intellectual achievement -- one that says much about an evolution taking place in Quebec and particularly in Montreal at that time.

Most of Young's work has like that: sceptical interrogations of the socio-economic structures of 19th century Quebec society and politics from a marxist point of view. When I've needed to write something about Quebec, even on topics far afield from Young's specific interests, his seemingly-specialized works are ones I find myself going back to.

He's had wider interests too. He's the author of Respectable Burial, a study of Montreal's Mount Royal Cemetary. The Making and Unmaking of a University Museum was a powerful critique of changes -- regrettable changes, in Young's view -- at Montreal's McCord Museum. And he co-authored the widely used survey Short History of Quebec with John Dickinson.

Young has also been active for many years in a network called the Montreal History Group (long called the Montreal Business History Group). On April 30, the Group is hosting a day-long conference in Brian Young's honour. It's at Thomson House on the McGill campus -- more information, if you are interested, by email to mhgmayday2009[at]gmail.com

What an Academic History Conference is like

I don't go to many. This vivid description is part of the reason why there's a lot I miss not at all. (Potty-mouth alert)

Later update: Here's another perspective, also via Cliopatria, on the job-prep part of it (outlining things you might think would have been standard for a hundred years or so).

History of Senate Reform

Noting recent developments in Senate, ah, "reform," Stephen MacLean of the Disraeli-Macdonald Institute draws our attention to a collection of scholarly papers on the subject of Senate reform, with comparisons to upper house processes in Britain and Australia.

I like to see the young people having a good time

The careful consideration of the ephemeral and dynamic meanings of places has drawn questions regarding place creation and attachment into the realm of historical study.

Graduate students at Concordia in Montreal organize and host an annual conference they call "History in the Making." They are interested in "innovative sources, unconventional methods, and the archive reimagined" -- though they can also write sentences like the one quoted above. They will be meeting in Montreal March 7 to 9 next year, and they are looking for proposals from all disciplines. The website is here.