Call for Papers: #BATW 2020 in Plymouth, England

This serves as the initial Call for Papers for the 2020 Britain and the World Conference, Plymouth, UK, 2020. 

After 2019 in Kansas City, Britain and the World returns to the UK: Wednesday 17 to Friday 19 June 2020 at the University of Plymouth as the city marks Mayflower400. 

As ever, the conference is concerned with interactions between Britain and the wider world from the sixteenth century to the present and will highlight the importance of transnational perspectives. Although we welcome papers on all topics and periods, given that 2020 marks the 400thanniversary of the Mayflower voyage we're especially keen to see papers that engage with transatlantic relations; the movement of peoples, ideas, and goods; maritime history; port cities and urban spaces. 

We accept individual twenty-minute talks as well as complete panel submissions and roundtables. Abstracts should be 250-300 words. Panels are expected to consist of three or four papers and should be submitted by one person who is willing to serve as the point of contact. Complete panels should also include a chair. In addition to abstracts for each individual paper, panel and roundtable submissions should also include a 100-150 word introduction describing the main theme. The conference does not discriminate between panels and individual paper submissions, nor between graduate students and established academics.

Please note that this year's, unusually, is a Wednesday-Friday, not Thursday-Saturday, conference.

We'll be awarding a prize for the best conference paper, which will include conditional acceptance for publication in the peer-reviewed Britain and Worldjournal (Edinburgh University Press). All conference participants are eligible.

The conference hub – where the publishers will be based, and where lunch and refreshments will be served – is the Sherwell Centre, a converted church on the university campus, with parallel and plenary sessions in next-door Portland Square. Sherwell and Portland are ten minutes' walk from both Plymouth Station and the conference hotel, Jury's Inn.

The conference icebreaker will be held on the Tuesday evening in Sutton Harbour, ten minutes' walk from the hotel; a welcome reception will follow on the Wednesday; the Conference Dinner on the Thursday will be at the magnificent Stonehouse Barracks which overlooks the sea; and our traditional last-night outings downtown will be in and around the Barbican.

Getting to and from Plymouth may be via a direct train line to London Paddington, direct bus service from London Heathrow, and London Victoria, or flights to nearby Newquay or Exeter airports.

All submissions for inclusion in the conference should be received by Friday, 3 January 2020 with decisions on inclusion announced by Friday, 24 January 2020. Submissions should be made by email to contact@britainandtheworld.org. Please submit all information in the body of your email (no attachments or PDFs, thank you!) and in the following order: name, affiliation, email, paper title, abstract, keywords.

Updates regarding the conference will periodically be posted on the BATW website. It is hoped that participants will be able to call upon their departments for hotel and transportation expenses as the Society – which is non-profit – is not able to offer financial support.

On Twitter our @britishscholar hashtag is #BATW2020. Registration for the Conference will open in early 2020.

Conference registration rates will be announced in the early autumn, along with plenaries and lodging details. 

If you have any questions about the conference, please feel free to email  contact@britainandtheworld.org.

Thanks, 

Martin, Mikki, and Justin