Nicholas D. Chabraja Center for Historical Studies
Northwestern University
www.historicalstudies.northwestern.edu
Graduate Student Conference April 1, 2016
The Power of the Past:
Tradition, Myth and History
Application deadline: Monday, DECEMBER 7, 2015
This graduate conference to be held April 1, 2016 at Northwestern University invites papers
around the broad role of the past in shaping a wide variety of social and political projects. It aims to
enrich our understanding of the role of tradition, myth and memory in shaping human understandings of
the past. Approaches to memory studies have progressed significantly in sophistication since the pathbreaking work of Maurice Halbwachs. Historians now recognize the boundary between collective
memory and history as a constructed and contentious one, inhabited by myriad social actors anxious to
impress their versions of history onto various audiences. In contrast to Foucauldian approaches to
tradition, which stress its arbitrary and discontinuous nature, this conference would encourage historical
approaches consonant with the late Philippe Ariès, who encouraged historians to take tradition as a
starting point in their approach to the past. Historians can contribute invaluably to analyzing the way
discourses about the past are formed in various societies, what myths, traditions and other materials go
into making historical narrative, and the way the past is used to mobilize, inspire, and support various
kinds of social and political projects.
Papers can address questions including (but not limited to): the role of myths and symbols in
reconstructions of the past, the transformation of memory over time, the interplay between collective
memory and historical narrative, and the role of myth and tradition in nationalist and religious discourse.
Although this is a conference organized by historians, we encourage and anticipate proposals from
graduate students in sociology, classics, anthropology, and others working on interdisciplinary
approaches to the study of memory.
The conference features keynote speaker Yael Zerubavel of Rutgers University, author of
Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition (University of
Chicago, 1995). Our distinguished commentator is Jean Allman of Washington University in Saint
Louis, and author of many books and articles on West African history, most recently (with John Parker)
of Tongnaab: The History of a West African God. Professors from the history department at
Northwestern University will also serve as commentators.
Interested graduate students should send a paper proposal of no more than one page (250 words), and an
updated CV to Nathaniel Mathews: (Mathews.nathaniel@gmail.com), by December 7, 2015. A
Northwestern history faculty committee will select the papers. Conference papers will be ten to twelve
pages double spaced, and due by Friday, March 18th, in order to allow time for circulation to the
commentators. Presentations will last no longer than 15 minutes.
Nathaniel Mathews
T.H. Breen Graduate Fellow
Chabraja Center for Historical Studies
Northwestern University