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Barbarians, the Baltic, and Beyond: A Comparative Borderlands Conference
May 2, 2011 @ 12:00 am
Traditional research on borders and frontiers has typically emphasized the divisive influence of “hard” boundaries imposed by geography, politics, and economics. This conference seeks to widen the narrow conceptions of space underlying traditional work on borders by focusing on borderlands and frontier zones, spaces of interaction between different cultural groups. The conference pays particular attention to the experiences of people who live and act in borderland societies. The participants in this conference study a diverse range of periods and places, but all share a common interest in the mechanics of borderlands interactions and the shaping of borderlands identities. Our goal is to foster comparative discussion that crosses academic dividing lines, in hopes of inspiring further research and cooperation.
This conference is sponsored by the Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group (UC Santa Barbara) and the Baltic Borderlands International Research Training Group (University of Greifswald, Germany), in cooperation with the Ancient Mediterreanean Studies Program, the Department of History, and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.
Funding for this conference has been provided by the UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center and the UCSB College of Letters & Science. Additional support was provided by the UC Multi-Campus Research Group in Late Antiquity.
OPENING REMARKS: 9:00-9:10am
John W.I. Lee (UCSB)
Michael North (University of Greifswald)
SESSION I: 9:10-10:25am
Veronica Castillo-Munoz (History, UCSB). Beyond “Red Light” Districts: Agrarian Struggles and Transnational Labor
in the Mexico-U.S. Borderlands.
Gabriela Soto Laveaga (History, UCSB). Borders and Boundaries of Political Dissent: Medical Knowledge and
Labor Strikes in Modern Mexico.
Manja Olschowski (History, Greifswald). The Influence of Territorial Borders on Medieval Monastic Economy.
BREAK: 10:25-10:45
SESSION II: 10:45am-12pm
Clinton Smith (History, UCSB). From Frontiers to Borderlands: The Shifting Contours of Native American History.
Olga Sasunkevich (Political Science & Sociology, Greifswald). Place, Gender and Power on the Borderlands: Studying the Petty
Smuggling Community on the Border between Belarus and Lithuania.
Leah Fernandez (History, UCSB). Cooperation and Conflict in a Borderland: California’s Imperial Valley, 1900-1910.
LUNCH: 12:00-1:00pm
KEYNOTE TALK & RESPONSE: 1:00-2:20pm
Greg Fisher (Greek and Roman Studies, Carleton University). Barbarian Leadership in the Places “In Between”– North African and Syrian Comparisons. With a response by Elizabeth DePalma Digeser (History, UCSB).
BREAK (2:20-2:40pm)
SESSION III: 2:40-4:15pm
Ann Marie Plane (History, UCSB). “These inraged Barbarians”: Visionaries and the Spiritual Struggle for the Maine Borderlands, 1675-1684.
Kord-Henning Uber (History, Greifswald). Weak Borders, Strong Boundaries? The Religious Environment of the
Couronian Nobility around 1700.
Stefan Herfurth (History, Greifswald). Swedish Pomerania in the 18th Century: Development of a Borderland in the Baltic Sea Region.
Adrienne Edgar (History, UCSB). Ethnic Mixing in a Eurasian Borderland: Intermarriage and Identity in Soviet Kazakhstan.
Closing Remarks: 4:15pm
John W.I. Lee (UCSB)
Michael North (Greifswald)
jwil 10.iv.2011