We seek papers that explore the ways in which power, land, and people have been possessed and dispossessed across time and space. Our call includes all areas of historical specialization including, but not limited to, topics in ancient history, medieval, the Atlantic world, European, American, Latin American, women and gender studies, religion and classical studies, African-American studies and subaltern groups. Proposals from interdisciplinary fields are also encouraged.

We welcome papers that address the theme from all disciplines and especially invite those that deal with possession and dispossession in indigenous and settler-colonial relations; slavery and freedom; economic theories and/or critiques of capitalism; histories of religion and spiritualism; land possession and resource usage; biography; and papers that focus on subaltern studies of inclusion and exclusion.

Questions for consideration include: Is there individual autonomy within narratives of possession and dispossession? How have human societies recovered and reconstructed histories of possession and dispossession to suit national and political agendas? How do responses to forms of possession and dispossession vary across international boundaries, class lines, gender and ethnicity differences and geographical regions?

Upstate New York offers itself as an ideal site of inquiry for those who seek to understand what it means to possess and dispossess. We hope to draw on our region's history as the homeland of the Seneca, as a wellspring of movements for antislavery, abolition, spiritualism, and woman's rights in the nineteenth century, and as a seat of penal, environmental, and political reformulation through the twentieth century. To this end we intend to dedicate one panel at this year's conference to the study of New York and/or Great Lakes region.          

Submission Guidelines: Please submit a proposal abstract of no more than 250 words.

Direct any questions to rochestergradconference[at]gmail.com