This serves as the Call for Papers for the 2022 Britain and the World Conference, Plymouth, UK. BATW2022
After 2019 in Kansas City, US, and 2021 online, Britain and the World returns to the UK: Wednesday 15 to Friday 17 June 2022 at the University of Plymouth.
This is, in effect, the 2020 conference, postponed for obvious reasons by two years. It will be in-person, with some provision for virtual participation. Please state your preference with your proposal.
We’re delighted to be able to announce our two plenary speakers: Claire Jowitt (UEA) and Stuart Ward (University of Copenhagen). The conference will also feature John M. MacKenzie as we launch his festschrift, The MacKenzie Moment and Imperial History, and 12 other books published in our series with Palgrave Macmillan since we last met.
As ever, the conference is concerned with interactions between Britain and the wider world from the sixteenth century to the present and will highlight the importance of transnational perspectives. As a conference and society concerned with British Studies, we welcome papers on all topics and periods. Given that 2020 marked the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage, and much commemoration continues, we’re especially keen to see papers that engage with transatlantic relations; the movement of peoples, ideas, and goods; maritime history; port cities, and urban spaces.
We accept individual twenty-minute talks as well as complete panel submissions and roundtables. Abstracts should be 250-300 words. Panels are expected to consist of three or four papers and should be submitted by one person who’s willing to serve as the point of contact. Complete panels should also include a chair. In addition to abstracts for each individual paper, panel and roundtable submissions should also include a 100–150-word introduction describing the main theme. The conference does not discriminate between panels and individual paper submissions, nor between graduate students and established academics.
Please note that 2022’s, unusually, is a Wednesday-Friday, not Thursday-Saturday, conference.
We’ll be awarding a prize for the best conference paper, which will include conditional acceptance for publication in the peer-reviewed Britain and World journal (Edinburgh University Press). All conference participants are eligible.
Palgrave History’s commissioning editor will be at the conference. We encourage delegates who have books of their own recently published or in press to bring promotional material which we’d be happy to distribute. The editor of our journal Britain and the World will also be present, and both book series and journal editors would be very happy to discuss proposals and submissions to each.
The conference hub – where the publishers will be based, and where lunch and refreshments will be served – is the Sherwell Centre, a converted church on the university campus, with parallel and plenary sessions in next-door Portland Square. Sherwell and Portland are ten minutes’ walk from both Plymouth Station and the conference hotel, Jury’s Inn.
The conference icebreaker will be held on the Tuesday evening in Sutton Harbour, ten minutes’ walk from the hotel; a welcome reception will follow on the Wednesday; the Conference Dinner on the Thursday will be at the magnificent Stonehouse Barracks which overlooks Plymouth Sound; and our traditional last-night outings downtown will be in and around the Barbican.
Getting to and from Plymouth may be via a direct train line with London Paddington, direct bus service from London Heathrow, and London Victoria, or flights to nearby Newquay or Exeter airports.
All submissions for inclusion in the conference should be received by Friday, 7 January 2022 with decisions announced by Friday, 4 February 2022. Submissions should be made via our online portal: https://forms.gle/qCgtLbhiho2jhAfp6.
Updates regarding the conference will periodically be posted on the BATW website. It is hoped that participants will be able to call upon their departments for hotel and transportation expenses as the Society – which is non-profit – is not able to offer financial support.
On Twitter our @britishscholar hashtag is #BATW2022. Registration for the Conference will open in early 2022.
Conference registration rates will be forthcoming, along with lodging details.
If you have any questions about the conference, please feel free to email contact@britainandtheworld.org.
Very much looking forward to seeing you,
Martin, Jess, Jacob, and Justin
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