Archival Kismet Spring 2023 CFP: “Stuff: Thinking about Things.”

The Spring 2023 meeting of Archival Kismet will be held virtually April 14-15, 2023. This will be a themed meeting, entitled “Stuff: Thinking about Things.” We particularly encourage scholars whose work deals with material culture, including museum and archive professionals who want to talk about objects in their holdings. 

This non-traditional virtual conference is a forum for history researchers and those in allied disciplines to share early research findings, focusing on the objects, artifacts, and ephemera of the archive broadly construed.

All presentations should be informal and centered around a specific “cool thing” or archival “find” relating to the theme—in this case, objects in particular. Think of your presentation like history show-and-tell. 

You do not need to have conclusions or interventions staked out, and you should not present on material you have previously published. This is a space for scholars to share new archival finds and what is exciting about them, without worrying about what conclusions we will reach.

Presentations should be roughly 10 minutes long. Substantial time will be given for discussion with conference participants. Presenters are expected to attend and participate in the conversations in other panels.

The conference will take place April 14-15, 2023 hosted virtually at Mississippi State University. Please contact the organizers, Courtney Thompson (cthompson@history.msstate.edu) with any questions or concerns.

Submissions via this form will be accepted through January 15, 2023.