Dear colleagues,
I am happy to announce that the Africa Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison will organizing a conference on Early Maritime Cultures on the East African Coast on Oct 30-31 2015. The organizer of the conference (myself) is a zooarchaeologist and I would be delighted if you would consider presenting your research at the conference.
Call for Papers
Early Maritime Cultures on the East African Coast
A conference organized by the Africa Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Memorial Union on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Campus
30-31 October, 2015
The Indian Ocean has long influenced cultures along the East African coast. This inter-disciplinary conference on maritime history will allow scholars from multiple disciplines to present work connected with seafaring in East Africa in any era. The organizers will particularly favor paper proposals focused on maritime developments before about 1500 CE.
Themes of particular interest include:
1) Early instances of maritime activity in East Africa.
2) Lines of evidence available for the study of early seafaring along the East African coast.
3) East African maritime cultures and their connections by sea with other lands.
4) The engagement of non-maritime East African peoples, including foragers, farmers, herders, with the Indian Ocean.
5) Indian Ocean migrations to and from East Africa.
6) Indian Ocean trading systems.
7) The Indian Ocean and the contours of East African cosmopolitanism
8) Maritime technologies, innovation, and change.
Papers on other themes will be considered, especially those that deal in some way with maritime technologies and practices in East Africa before about 1500
One of our ambitions is to produce an edited volume, but we cannot guarantee publication.
The conference organizers expect to be able to provide lodging for participants in Madison for one or two nights as well as some sociability (a meal or two). Potential participants planning to come from locations outside the United States, especially Africa, may request additional support, such as help with air fare, but it is very unlikely that we will be able to provide more than $1,000 of such support for anyone, nor can we guarantee it at this time.
Those interested in participating in this conference should address an email message to Mr. Akshay Sarathi, the prime organizer, who is a doctoral candidate in archaeology. Please put “East Africa Maritime Abstract” in the subject line of the message and send it to: [log in to unmask] Attach to the message as a pdf or Word document an abstract of 200 to 300 words.
Deadline for receipt of abstracts: 17 July 2015
By 1 August 2015 we hope to notify submitters whether or not their paper has been accepted.
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