We are pleased to invite paper and panel proposals for our 32nd BrANCH (British American Nineteenth Century Historians) annual conference, this year held jointly with the British Group in Early American History (BGEAH). The conference will be held at Leonardo Hotel in Cardiff, Wales, on September 12-14, 2025.
We particularly welcome individual papers and panel proposals that transcend the traditional chronological divides of our organisations, and that open new lines of communication between established thematic specialties, as well as papers and panels that cut across traditional categoties of historical inquiry in imaginative and innovative ways, including roundtable sessions and other formats. We invite papers on all aspects of North American history including the Caribbean and Canada through to the end of the long nineteenth century. Postgraduate contributions are especially welcome.
The BrANCH keynote Parish lecturer will be Professor Tim Lockley (University of Warwick).
Tim Lockley is a social historian of the colonial and antebellum South as well as the greater Caribbean, whose work has focused on race and class, health and welfare, and resistance and conflict in Atlantic slave societies. The BGEAH keynote lecture will be delivered by Professor Catherine Kelly (William and Mary). Catherine Kelly’s work on women has transcended the carly modem and modern periods in American history. Since 2022, she has been Executive Director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture.
We are committed to accepting panels that reflect a range of gender, racial, career, and institutional diversity. All participants must be members of either BrANCH or BGEAH before the conference, and must abide by the BrANCH Code of Conduct and confetence guidelines as outlined on our website.
Subsidies for UK-based postgraduate participants are available for those not in receipt of support from their home institutions. We also provide bursaries to support participants with caring responsibilities. Please note that both are limited and will be available on a first come first served basis.
To apply, please send a brief one-page CV, and a 300-word abstract for each paper or panel (no more than 3 speakers per panel, please) to branch19conference2025@gmail.com by Friday April 25, 2025.
David S. Doddington & Gareth Davis
BrANCH/BGHAH Conference Secretaries
February 2025
