Milton Plesur Graduate History Conference
Each year, the GHA hosts the annual Milton Plesur Conference, a graduate conference named in honor of the late Milton Plesur, a distinguished professor of History who taught at the University at Buffalo from 1955 to 1987. The conference has no overarching theme, and all works of historical inquiry are considered, with no restrictions placed upon the themes, chronological periods, or general areas of study that the papers can cover. Like the GHA, the conference embraces interdisciplinary approaches to the study of history, and graduate students from a number of different disciplines have presented papers on a wide variety of historical topics since the conference was first held on April 15, 1993.
Each year, the GHA also invites a prominent historian to give a keynote presentation, with past presenters including Paul Deslandes (2012), Jelani Cobb (2011), Jon Sensbach (2010), Susan Myers-Shirk (2009), Nan Enstad (2008), Penny Von Eschen (2007), Victoria De Grazia (2006), Hasia Diner (2005), Matthew Guterl (2004), David Thelen (2003), Joseph A. McCartin (2002), and Volker R. Berhahn (2001).
Graduate students from all disciplines and universities are encourage to submit paper proposals.
For more information about Milton Plesur, see the University at Buffalo's "Changing Lives" website, which hosts page in his honor.
Picture courtesy of the University at Buffalo's ubchanginglives.org website.
2012 Milton Plesur Graduate History Conference
- The Historian's Gaze:
- Embodying the Past, Seeing Ourselves
- The Historian's Gaze:
- Embodying the Past, Seeing Ourselves
- University at Buffalo
- The State University of New York
- Buffalo, NY
- March 31, 2012
The Graduate History Association (GHA) at the University at Buffalo is pleased to announce the 21st Annual Milton Plesur Graduate History Conference, to be held on March 31, 2012 in the Center for Tomorrow. 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. 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.
Past Conferences
Click here to download the 2012 Milton Plesur Graduate Conference call for papers (PDF)
Click here to view the schedule for the 2011 conference (PDF)
Click here to download the 2010 Milton Plesur Graduate Conference call for papers (PDF)
Click here to view the schedule for the 2010 conference (PDF)