Call for Papers: Centre for Port and Maritime History Annual Conference

Posted: Monday 4th July 2022

Memorials and commemoration practices have always provoked debate. However, recent controversies regarding statues in South Africa, the United States, the UK and elsewhere have meant that societal and academic interest in the topic has become heated in recent years. Many of the most troublesome sites and practices of memorialisation have connections to ports and seas, and so it seems apposite for the 2022 CPMH Conference to adopt as its theme ‘Memorialisation & the Sea’.

However, we wish to explore the full range and scope of port and maritime spaces of memorialisation – which are clearly more diverse than being spaces of controversy or protest. As a result, we encourage papers which may speak to the following themes:

- Material cultures and practices of commemoration
- Memorialisation and maritime identities (local, regional, national and transnational)
- Contested sites and spaces of maritime memorialisation
- Memorials, reconciliation and restorative practices
- Hidden, forgotten or abandoned/neglected memorials
- Maritime memorials to/of animals and other “more-than-human” actors/contexts
- Shifting interpretations of memorial spaces/sites
- State involvement in memorialisation 

To submit an abstract for this year’s conference, please email a 250-word abstract to Prof Nick White, Co-Director of CPMH by Tuesday 19 July 2022. 

Full call details attached. 

The Conference themed 'Memorialisation & the Sea' will be a hybrid event with the physical hosting in central Liverpool on Thursday 15 & Friday 16 September 2022.