The Rice Humanities Graduate Student Association Interdisciplinary Conference
Rice University – School of the Humanities
Graduate Conference
7-9 February 2014

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Humanities Graduate Student Association in association with the School of Humanities invites papers for the upcoming conference – The Rice Humanities Graduate Student Association Interdisciplinary Conference – to be held at Rice University in Houston, Texas on 7-9 February 2014.

The Rice Humanities Graduate Student Association Interdisciplinary Conference is a unique conference designed to promote interdisciplinary conversations among and between Humanities scholars and those in other disciplines at Rice University. The demand for interdisciplinary scholarship in the Humanities continues to grow as Digital Humanities and other subdisciplines emerge with the requirement that scholars understand more than one traditional field of study. Despite calls for increased interdisciplinarity in the Humanities, the propensity towards single-authored papers and studies substantially, if not completely rooted in one traditional discipline, remains strong.

The conference in question seeks to take a step towards changing this by creating a platform for interdisciplinary conversations. Individual papers may be primarily rooted in one’s home discipline, but the panels will consist of scholars each from three different disciplines. The organizers believe that multi-disciplined panels will foster conversations about how to integrate different methodologies into traditional fields, and provide the School of Humanities with a new approach to the practice of interdisciplinary scholarship. This exercise will also strengthen the work of Rice graduate students by forging connections between graduate students from different disciplines who are working on similar topics but may not have been aware of this due to the often department-specific nature of graduate study. To further the interdisciplinary nature of this conference, papers from scholars in fields related to the social sciences, physical sciences, engineering and math are also welcome.

Any topic is acceptable. Papers should not exceed twenty minutes in length.

Please submit your final 300-word abstract, along with your name, institution, and year of study to hgsa@rice.edu by 1 December 2013.

Research Mixer, November 15, 4pm-6pm:
In order to make connections between presenters from different disciplines, individuals are encouraged to attend the HGSA Interdisciplinary Research Mixer to be held on 15 November 2013 (see attached flier). Please note that admission and refreshments are dependent on having a working proposal for your paper. As such we request a hard copy first draft of something you’ve been working on (150-300 Words) to act as your ticket. We understand that the research you bring to the mixer may not be the research you eventually present, this is just to ensure you have something to discuss with your fellow mixer participants.
Though not required, we request an RSVP for the mixer to hgsa@rice.edu to ensure sufficient refreshments.