Upcoming Conferences and Meetings

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Blame it, perhaps, on a hangover from nationalism's early mingling with European romantics, but the primacy of ‘the rural' in nationalist imaginaries remains well established, recurring in political and cultural discourse as the fundamental site of national authenticity, tradition and identity. This tendency has resulted in a distortion of nationalism's crucial yet ambivalent relationship with the pastoral inverse - the smoky, crowded, dynamic space of ‘the urban' - and despite the usual eagerness of scholars to dismantle any and all ‘myths' propagated by nationalist paradigms, very little has been done to theorize this pivotal interplay between nationalism and the city.

How are we to understand the role of cities in nationalism's pasts, presents and futures?

The urban landscape is at once intensely local and profoundly global, while commonly appropriated (internally or externally) as a compelling (though never uncontested) representation of ‘the national whole'. It was through cities that intellectuals traded early ideas of ‘the nation', and it is in cities that national identities have been pushed to their breaking points. The urban has helped to shape the national and this relation also works in reverse: cities can be sites for national consolidation and commemoration, but also facilitate the emergence of ‘spaces of alterity' and zones of conflict.

This conference will move to ‘re-centre' the urban in theories of nations and nationalism, facilitating a dialogue across disciplines to address the many layers of what has been described as ‘the urban palimpsest'. A special emphasis will be placed on integrating the insights of those focused on dynamics in the city and those addressing the broader phenomenon of nationalism, to enliven debates on space, identity, and politics and to illuminate important convergences and contradictions, conjunctures and disjunctures.

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Canberra, Australia

Papers and proposals for sessions are invited for the APEBH 2012 conference. The main conference theme is ‘Economic Integration: Historical Perspectives from Europe and Asia-Pacific' but the organisers are open to proposals for contributions on other topics in economic, social, and business history, as well as to proposals for sessions on particular themes. Researchers across a broad range of disciplines are warmly welcomed. Early career researchers are encouraged to participate. The conference organisers are particularly interested in attracting papers that examine developments in countries and regions in the Asia-Pacific region and papers that provide an international comparative perspective.

Economic integration is generally considered to be an aspect of the current process of globalisation. The European Union (EU) is often held up as a possible model for fostering the process of regional economic integration inAsia. However, the integration process inEuropesince the 1950s has been a formal process by which member states handed some authorities to the supranational EU. Throughout history, processes of economic integration occurred through both informal and formal processes. They occurred across regions within countries as transport facilities improved. They occurred across the borders of neighbouring countries as bilateral trade barriers were reduced, and in regions of the world due to multilateral initiatives. Formal agreements were not necessarily a prerequisite for economic integration. Private enterprises often took international business initiatives, despite the continued existence of barriers to international trade and investment. Formal processes of lowering such barriers followed. Where tariffs had been lowered, deepening integration by reducing non-tariff trade barriers remained an ongoing process. This happened in countries that became federations (e.g.USA,Germany,Australia,Malaysia), and countries that concluded bilateral (e.g. Australia-New Zealand), plurilateral (e.g. AFTA) and multilateral trade agreements.

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Cape Town, South Africa

The leading figures in the world of African trade and export finance will gather in Cape Town for Exporta's 6th Annual Africa Trade & Export Finance Conference, widely recognised as the only event in the calendar focusing specifically on trade and export finance within the Sub-Saharan market.

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Gottenheim near Freiburg, Germany

The (IJAS) International Journal of Arts and Ssciences) Conference Series takes place annually in several cities across Europe and North America. The series has three primary aims.

The first aim is to provide opportunities for academics from a range of disciplines and countries to share their research both through the conference podium and IJAS' double-blind refereed publications. All IJAS conferences are inter- and multi-disciplinary.

The second aim of the Conference Series is to provide opportunities for academics to receive informal in-depth feedback through discussions, and to enable them to establish contact with professionals in other countries and institutions. The tours are the main way of "breaking the ice" away from the formalities of the conference hall, providing an informal setting for discussing different points of view. Even in an increasingly networked world of internet and satellite conferences, there is no substitute for personal interaction, what Edward R. Murrow calls "the last three feet of communication." It is individuals, not data streams, who must ultimately build the connections that in turn create lasting international research partnerships.

The third aim of the Conference Series is to introduce academics to educational premises in locations that are suitable for study abroad programs and which may meet their students' educational needs. IJAS draws its inspiration from the Fulbright Program, an integral part of the United States' foreign educational relations, where face-to-face exchanges have proven to be the single most effective means of engaging international publics while broadening dialogue between academics and institutions.

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Toronto, Canada

This refereed four-day conference is staged at Ryerson University's International Living Learning Centre (ILLC) at 240 Jarvis Street in downtown Toronto. The conference brings together international academics, including professors and graduate students, to present research in their respective fields.

We invite abstracts, papers, and proposals in any of the following tracks: 

• Social Sciences and Humanities,
• Business and Economics,
• Teaching and Education, and
• Technology and Science.

The accepted submissions will be clustered around their common topics and areas of interest. As is typical of multidisciplinary conferences, the final program - released about three weeks before the conference - will mirror the research agendas of the delegates rather than a pre-conceived list of arbitrary topics.

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