OCTOBER 16–18, 2015 • WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA

We hope you join us for “Emerging Histories of Early Modern French Atlantic,” October 16–18, 2015, in Williamsburg, Virginia at the Williamsburg Lodge, 310 S. England Street. Please register for the conference by clicking on the link above and following the instructions. You can pick up your registration packet starting at 8:00 on Friday, October 16, at the table just outside of the Tidewater room.

SPECIAL OPPORTUNITY:

Arrive the day before the conference begins and join us for the inaugural OI THis Camp. A response to the popular THAT Camp format in which humanities scholars get together to teach each other useful software packages for academic research and presentation, THis Camp will teach historians software of special use for the discipline and, moreover, do so at a Beginner’s level. This October’s Camp will be taught by University of Virginia professors Max Edelson and Bill Ferster, creators of the popular online resource MAP SCHOLAR program. You will leave the workshop with the basic skills to use the program.

THis Camp is offered at no charge but registration in advance is necessary and places are very limited. You can sign up for THis Camp via the Registration form.

The conference will feature original research examining diverse aspects of the French Atlantic from roughly 1400 to 1815.

As stated in the Call for Papers, the time is ripe to assess the state of French Atlantic history by fostering conversations across specializations that promise to engage fundamental questions about the field as a whole. Although scholarship on the French Atlantic has lagged behind histories of contemporary English and Iberian colonialism, the past two decades have witnessed a flurry of exciting new research on France’s encounter with the early modern Atlantic world. Despite the richness of this developing work, it remains fragmented, divided by region and informed by methodological frameworks that limit synthesis and comparison.

We would like to thank Department of History at Brigham Young University for sponsoring the lunch-time workshops; the John Carter Brown library for sponsoring the Friday night reception and the special exhibit at Swem Library; Sid Lapidus for his generous loan of materials for the special exhibit; the Reves Center at the College of William and Mary for sponsoring the Saturday night reception; the University of Notre Dame, the French Atlantic History Group at McGill University, and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales for their support in the form of travel stipends; the office of the Dean of Arts & Sciences at the College of William & Mary for their support; and the Florence Gould Foundation for their generous donation.