U.S., Canadian Grad Students Merging for Annual Weekend Conference
Contact: Rob Gee, 603-370-0982, Robert.gee@umit.maine.edu
ORONO — The 12th annual UM/UNB Conference being held this year at the University of Maine will assemble history graduate students from United States and Canada for three days of discussions about teaching, the academic job market, pedagogy and scholarly presentations.
The annual event, hosted in alternate years by graduate students in the history departments at UMaine and the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, has grown each year in size and scope. Once a very small gathering of graduate students from the two departments, it has mushroomed to where scholars from universities across Canada and the United States present their work, hone their craft, and develop valuable contacts in their field, according to Rob Gee, a UMaine graduate student in history.
Representatives from Harvard, Columbia, Brandeis, UCLA and Dalhousie are among the registrants. The conference will include several panels relating to women and gender studies, in addition to the environment, economic development and a range of social and cultural themes.
“This conference has become an important component of graduate study in history both at UMaine and at the University of New Brunswick,” Gee says. “Numerous scholars made their first ever presentations in the friendly and informal atmosphere that we try to maintain, and many important works of scholarship, now books and articles, were first aired right here as nuggets of good ideas in various stages of confusion and disarray. Historians tend to do their work in relative solitude, so these opportunities to come together, collaborate, and share ideas and questions is really of tremendous value.”
The conference begins Friday evening, Oct. 1 in Buchanan Alumni House and runs all day Saturday and Sunday in Hill Auditorium in Barrows Hall and Soderberg Center in Jenness Hall.