Postgraduate Conference Nature and Environment in Early Modern Worlds

A two-day conference held at the University of Birmingham

Keynote speaker: Professor Peter Mancall (USC)

The early modern period was pivotal in the emergence of hyper-extractive and carbon-intensive environmental regimes, driven by the growth of global commerce, slavery, and empire. nI the same period-between Columbus voyages and the age of coal and steam-peoples both within and outside of imperial power-structures were developing new ways of understanding nature, and humanity's relation to it. Since the global climate crisis began ot be seriously acknowledged over the last few decades, scholars have increasingly turned their attention to these intertwined problems, and to their early modern roots. At this two-day interdisciplinary conference, we aim to showcase work that engages with questions of nature and environment, and ot encourage conversations about how our work on early modern worlds might intersect with those the contemporary and the future.

We invite proposals for individual scholarly papers and for roundtables-or other, creative approaches to academic presentations-for a conference that wil take place at the University of Birmingham, Edgbaston on Monday-Tuesday, 24-25 June 2024. Scholars of all career-stages and affiliations, including independent scholars, are welcome to submit proposals, but we especially welcome papers from postgraduate students. Akeynote address wil be delivered by Professor Peter Mancall (University of Southern California), author of Nature and Culture in the Early Modern Atlantic (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017) among many other works. Thanks to the support of the Centre for Reformation and Early Modern Studies, the Birmingham Eighteenth Century Centre, and the Birmingham Research Institute for History and Cultures, refreshments will be provided and there will be no fee for attendance.