19th Military History Colloquium at the University of Waterloo

The call for papers for the 19th Military History Colloquium has been issued by the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies, the Department of History of the University of Waterloo, and the Department of History of St. Jerome's University. This year's conference will be held at the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, from 1 to 3 May 2008. The topics for proposals can range widely through the breadth of Canadian military history and can cover all aspects of the subject. All scholars are welcome to submit proposals for papers, but grad students and recent grads are "especially encouraged to submit". One-page proposals should be submitted to Mike Bechthold via e-mail at mbechthold@wlu.ca by fax at 519-886-5057 or by snail mail at the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario. The deadline for proposals is 22 February 2008.

Conference on the Seven Years' War

The Omohundro Institute of Early American History, Niagara University, and Brock University, are preparing to host a conference titled "Contest for Continents: The Seven Years' War in Global Perspective" from 22 to 24 October 2009 "to examine the Seven Years' War (the French and Indian War, 1754-1763) as a global conflict." As the press release continues,

With nearly one million battlefield deaths and fighting on four continents and in three oceans, the Great War for Empire stands as the first world war. The conference will address the conflict as one that transcended the national and imperial categories that have traditionally been used to evaluate it. The object is to study the war both globally, involving North America, South Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, West Africa, and the Philippines, and in transnational perspective, including its military, diplomatic, political, cultural, economic, and social aspects.

The organizers are seeking to have a conference crossing multiple disciplines, nationalities, and imperial boundaries "and will welcome paper proposals from a variety of disciplines and scholarly approaches." Sessions of the conference will be held on the university campuses of Brock (St. Catharines, Ontario), Niagara (Niagara Falls, New York), and Old Fort Niagara (Youngstown, New York).

Proposals for papers are invited from "advanced graduate students as well as more more senior scholars" for both complete panels and individual papers "on any aspect of the Seven Years' War in any of its theaters, especially submissions that treat the war thematically across geographic boundaries." The organizers stress that the geographic element includes North America, Eastern and Central Europe, and South Asia. Submission details from the organizers: "To apply, send a 500-word synopsis of your proposal along with a short c.v. to ieahc1@wm.edu, as an attachment in MS Word. You may direct questions to program co-chairs Thomas A. Chambers (chambers@niagara.edu) and David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye (dschimme@brocku.ca). The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2008."

Military History Grad Students at the University of Western Ontario

Recently, I followed up a link on an individual only to find myself on a webpage listing the PhD students attending the University of Western Ontario. I found this interesting, because it provides the names and subject areas of a few Canadian military historians you might not be familiar with. I never thought of posting about this subject before, but I might try to see if I can find similar lists at other Canadian universities. The names and projects I found were:

Trista Grant, "Policy, Training and Performance: Canada's Peacekeepers from Suez to Sarajevo" (supervisor Jonathan Vance);

Wesley C. Gustavson, "The Whole Earth is their Sepulchre: History, Memory and the Imperial War Graves Commission" (Vance);

Richard Holt, "Filling the Ranks: Training and Reinforcements within the Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918" (Vance);

Teresa Iacobelli, "'Arbitrary Justice?': Executed and Commuted Death Sentences of the First World War" (Vance); and

Heather Moran, "Stretcher Bearers and Surgeons: Canadian Front-Line Medicine in the First World War" (Vance).