The Past Speaks

2014 Annual Conference of the Centre for Port and Maritime History, Liverpool

DATE 11-12th September, 2014

VENUE: TBC (but in Liverpool)

 Vectors: Port Cities as Gateways, Channels and Conduits

Following our highly successful conferences in 2012 and 2013, the Centre for Port and Maritime History is delighted to invite submissions for our 2014 conference on ‘Vectors: Port Cities as Gateways, Channels and Conduits’ Last year’s conference focused on the ‘otherness’, ‘exceptionalism’ or ‘liminality’ of port cities. This year we reflect on their role as gateways, channels, even gatekeepers – directing, regulating, and responding to the vectors traced by a whole series of flows. As points of interaction and exchange, as hubs and as spaces of encounter, port cities play a central role not only in the movement of goods, capital and services, but of ideas, peoples, and cultures. This may be on a local or regional level, as vents to hinterlands, or in their cross-border, trans-national, and trans-cultural role as outlets to and from seas and oceans. The discussion of port cities as vectors has obvious connotations for the study of health in port cities, in the spread and control of disease, but we conceive of vectors operating in a multitude of dimensions. Potential topics might include (but are not restricted to):

Proposals are invited for both individual presentations and panels (of no more than three papers) focused on the many vectors that pass through ports, without chronological or geographical limitation. This conference is gaining a reputation for a strongly interdisciplinary approach and a very supportive environment in which to explore new work and ideas. We thus especially encourage methodological and theoretical reflections, as well as presentations of current research projects, at whatever stage of development, and from both established and emerging scholars.

Please direct 300-word abstracts (including paper title and your contact details) by 30^th June 2014 to: Professor Andrew Popp at andrew.popp@liverpool.ac.uk

Mike Stammers’ New Researcher Awards. The Centre is delighted to announce the launch of this new annual award, which commemorates our colleague Dr Mike Stammers. Two awards will be made each year. The awards are open to presenters who are graduate students at the time of the conference and will entitle the two recipients to a waiver of all registration fees. If you wish to be considered for the award please submit an extended (2,000 word) abstract in place of the regular proposal and indicate that you wish to be considered for the award. The entries will be judged by the conference organizing committee and decisions announced alongside the acceptance/rejection of all proposals. The award will judged on the basis of originality (either empirical or theoretical or both), robustness, expression, and relevance to the conference theme.

For the Mike Stammers’ New Researcher Award please direct 2000-word abstracts (including paper title and contact details) by 30^th June 2014 to: Professor Andrew Popp at andrew.popp@liverpool.ac.uk