Events

Memory & Forgetting: Labor History and the Archive

Southern Labor Studies Conference
Atlanta, Georgia, April 7-10, 2011

Co-sponsored (thus far) by the Southern Labor Archives, Georgia State University Library; the Southern Labor Studies Association; and the Labor and Working Class History Association.

The SLSA is excited to announce its upcoming biennial conference and general meeting. The conference, which will be the 15th Southern Labor Studies Conference, will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Southern Labor Archives at Georgia State University.

Theme

Students of colonial and post-colonial societies have thought about how the very materials historians rely on to reconstruct the past—"the archive"—themselves are constituted by that past, rather than a transparent window onto it.

To coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Southern Labor Archives at GSU, the 15th Southern Labor Studies Conference proposes to turn a similar self-critical gaze on the materials labor historians rely on to produce the field of "labor history." How does the very process of locating, constructing, and organizing the "archive" of labor and working class history shape (and constrain) the very meaning of what historians and archivists treat as labor, the worker, or the working class? How have shifting archival fashions changed our understanding of labor's history? How has the "archive", in the broadest sense, abetted or impeded the "struggle of memory against forgetting."

Events

Special Events will include:

  • A reception at the Southern Labor Archive featuring a keynote address by Professor Robert Korstad, Duke University
  • A luncheon meeting, sponsored by LAWCHA, featuring a keynote address by Professor Alessandro Portelli, University of Rome
  • A labor history walking tour of Atlanta
  • A preview and discussion of the documentary film in progress: “Slavery by Another Name: the Re-enslavement of African Americans from the Civil War to World War II”
  • More events to be announced

Location

Most conference events will take place at the Sheraton Atlanta Hotel. Double and single rooms at $129 per night. Call 1-800-833-8624 to reserve. You must reserve by March 17, 2011 to get the conference rate.

Directions to the hotel are available on the hotel website. Parking will be available to conference attendees for a reduced rate of $9 per day.

Call for Papers

The Conference Committee invites proposals that consider the "archive" in the widest terms possible. Thus we envision proposals that look at actual archival practice in libraries, museums, state governments, universities, businesses, unions, and other institutions that play an important role in documenting—and thus filtering—labor's past, especially the past of the working class in the U.S. South. Other proposals might examine how labor historians have used particular methodologies to construct their own "archive"—most obviously through the practice of oral history, but also social activism, filmmaking, collecting, public history, memorialization, or other forms of historical practice and engagement. A third genre of proposals could look at what Antoinette Burton has called "archive stories", experiential descriptions of archival encounters that have illuminated (or obscured) certain aspects of the working class past. Still others may want to explore the role of the archive itself in the process of memory and forgetting—how has archivalization of the past fixed certain aspects of labor history in memory, while consigning others to the realm of forgetting? Finally, we invite proposals that consider how archival work of all sorts can be linked to particular moments of working class struggle.

These questions remain especially pressing in a time, region, and country that seem intent on denying the very existence of a "working class", both because narratives of American exceptionalism continue to insist on the absence of class relations in the nation's past, and because recent economic transformations threaten to obliterate the material bases of work and the working class altogether.

In addition to papers and panels addressing the above themes, the SLSC also invites proposals that examine the history of the southern working class more generally.

The Committee urges submissions of complete panels, including 2-3 papers and a commentator. We also invite roundtables, collective discussions of teaching, audio or visual presentations, and any other less orthodox formats. Proposals should include 300-word abstracts for each paper and a one-page c.v. for all participants.

Please submit proposals by October 1, 2010, to: alichtens@gmailcom and tdrummond@gsu.edu

LAWCHA Annual Meetings

Since its founding LAWCHA has been actively involved in co-sponsoring academic conferences at various locations. From 2000 to 2006, LAWCHA co-sponsored the annual North American Labor History Conference at Wayne State University in Detroit. In 2005 LAWCHA presented its first national conference in Santa Barbara, California, in cooperation with one of its related regional organizations, the Southwest Labor Studies Association. The conference in Santa Barbara, and more recently a second meeting at Duke University, proved so successful that LAWCHA leaders decided to hold all of its future annual meetings at rotating locations in North America. These are the sites, locations, and co-sponsors of our next several meetings:

Upcoming LAWCHA Meetings

2011: April 7-10, Atlanta, Georgia, co-sponsored by the Southern Labor Studies Association

2012: April 19-22, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, co-sponsored by the Organization of American Historians

Past LAWCHA Meetings

2010: Washington, D.C., co-sponsored by the Organization of American Historians

2009: Chicago: “Race, Labor and the City: Crises Old and New,” hosted by Roosevelt University.

2008: Vancouver, British Columbia, co-sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Labour History Association.
Click here for more information on the PNLHA.

2007: Durham, North Carolina, co-sponsored by Southern Labor Studies Association

2005: Santa Barbara, California, co-sponsored by Soutwest Labor Studies Association

Other LAWCHA Events

'Labor Across the Boundaries' One-Day Conference

LAWCHA is co-sponsoring a one-day conference entitled "Labor Across the Boundaries: A New Collaboration of U.S. Labor and Employment Relations, Political Economy, and Labor and Working Class History Scholars" on January 6, 2011, in Denver, Colorado. This unprecedented gathering of labor relations scholars, labor historians, and radical economists, along with labor activists, affords a unique opportunity to open up a multi-disciplinary dialogue on the past and present.

What concepts and assumptions, explicit and implicit, does each field bring to the study of labor? Where do they overlap and where do they converge? How does each understand "the labor question," its history, the nature of class conflict, the roles of gender and race as well as class in defining the lived experience of those who work, and the character and evolving nature of employers and employment relations systems? Was there a "capital-labor accord" or social contract between organized labor and business in the postwar years? How does the New Deal fit into a larger historiography of the 20th century? And how does each field understand "practice," and the relationship between scholarship and practice? Where do we go from here?

Labor Across the Boundaries" will enrich both analysis and practice in each field, and begin to re-forge active collaboration across the fields while enriching connections with practitioners. Speakers include Nancy MacLean, Sanford Jacoby, Nelson Lichtenstein, Kris Rondeau, Thomas Kochan, Bruce Laurie, Randy Albeida, Jennifer Klein, Rosemary Batt, Richard McIntyre, Bruce Kaufman, Ron Blackwell, and Michael Hillard.

The event is co-sponsored by the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA) and the Union of Radical Political Economists (URPE).

Registration note: The mini-conference is part of the economists (AEA) annual meetings, the Allied Social Science Association (ASSA) meetings, and will be held in Westin Tabor Hotel. Register for ASSA directly by going to the LERA website. You can also register by going to the AEA website. Hotel space in downtown Denver will be limited, so registering and arranging your hotel room early is strongly recommended.

Co-sponsored conference sessions

LAWCHA also co-sponsors sessions annually at the meetings of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the North American Labor History Conference. LAWCHA periodically participates in conferences of other learned societies as well as local events.