“Restrictions: Avenues of Limitation and Possibility: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference” held by The History, Classics, and Religious Studies Graduate Students’ Association (HCRS-GSA) of the University of Alberta
“Restrictions: Avenues of Limitation and Possibility: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference” held by The History, Classics, and Religious Studies Graduate Students’ Association (HCRS-GSA) of the University of Alberta
The History, Classics, and Religious Studies Graduate Students’ Association (HCRS-GSA) of the University of Alberta cordially invites graduate student submissions for the Association’s 2021 conference. This year’s topic is “Restrictions: Avenues of Limitation and Possibility,” and will take place from March 18–21, 2021, as a virtual event. We are excited to offer a $100 award for best abstract submission based on the proposed topic’s relevance, quality of writing, and originality. From amongst the conference presenters an award for best paper will also be granted along the same criteria.
The global Covid-19 pandemic has brought an awareness of restriction to the forefront of our consciousness. From social-distancing to lockdowns to economic turmoil, restriction forcefully confronts us as a limiting and highly disruptive factor at the everyday level. At the same time, our new restricted reality has facilitated creative avenues of possibility in the form of social relations/solidarity, business, education, and governmental policy. Our conference focuses on the intersection between limitation and possibility that arises out of restriction broadly construed, throughout history. Restriction can be the result of extraordinary circumstances but it is also ever present in the silences between words, in the laws that structure our actions, and in the memories we choose to access or forget. We ask applicants to interrogate the relationship between restriction and action, obedience and resistance, silence and expression.
This year we are celebrating the interdisciplinary character of our department and conference. We strongly encourage all related fields to apply, including, but not limited to: History, Classics, Religious Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, English, Political Science, Philosophy, Indigenous Studies, Economics, Cultural Studies, and Gender Studies.
Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words and a short biography (roughly 50 words) either as a Word or PDF file to conference.hcgsa@gmail.com by January 15, 2021 the extended deadline of January 31, 2021. Responses will be sent out by the end of January. Presentations should be no longer than 20 minutes to allow for a question period afterwards. This will be a virtual event.
