UCL Americas Research Network 2024 Conference – Historical Roots, Modern Realities: Nationalism Across the Americas

Please note that the conference has been postponed due to the corona virus situation, following the instructions issued by the University of Helsinki. The new dates are December 9 - 12, 2020. Update: The conference will be held as a virtual event. If you have any urgent questions, please do not hesitate to contact: mapleleaf-eagle@helsinki.fi. For decades, the Maple Leaf and Eagle Conference in North American Studies has presented a dynamic setting for examining and describing the phenomenon that is North America, involving the study of North America itself. We thrive on being interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, welcoming to academic specialties as varied as history, literature, politics, geography, media studies, ethnic studies, culture studies, law, and economics. Presentations are sought from a wide range of research traditions and from a variety of political and ideological backgrounds.

Thematic Approach Cross-dressing and transgender identity in general remained for long in the shadow. It has been only recently that trans rights began to be widely discussed and researched across the academic world. The prevailing majority of existing research dealt mainly with issues and case studies emergent post-1900 – that is, rather recently in academic terms, and therefore, trans rights and related issues as a sphere of academic inquiry have sometimes been depicted as a “modern” concept. We hope we initiate a productive conversation on the notion of transgender identity as connected with the political world, pre-1900s so we find the roots and identify the history of this rich and long topic. Yet, looking back at history, we encounter fascinating figures such as John Randolph of Roanoke (1773-1833), Chevalier D’Eon (1728-1810), Nadezhda Durova (1783-1866), and countless others. The figure of the cross-dressing shaman or spiritual healer, occupying a place of […]