CONFERENCE 2020
What is Commonplace?: Historicizing the Ordinary
Qu’est-ce que le banal?: L’historicisation de l’ordinaire
CONFERENCE COVID-19 STATEMENT
The HITM 2020 conference was scheduled to take place on March 13 & 14, 2020. With the impending pandemic, the 2020 HITM committee decided to cancel the conference on Thursday, March 12. The very next day, Quebec Premier François Legault announced a province-wide closure of schools and university. Below are a selection of papers that would have been presented at the conference.
Étant donné les préoccupations liées à la santé et sécurité en lien avec Covid-19 ainsi qu'en réponse à la plus récente conférence de presse du premier ministre Legault, nous nous voyons dans l'obligation de reporter la conférence History in the Making à une date ultérieure indéterminée. Vous trouverez ci-bas un échantillon d'essay qui, eut-elle eu lie, auraient été présenté à la conférence.
A note from the HITM 2020 organizing committee
This was supposed to be a conference about the ordinary. All the way back in the Autumn of 2019, our call for papers asked for small histories of everyday life, familiar things, and stories that are overlooked for their commonness. How ironic, then, that the day before the conference was to begin, we were forced to cancel due to a once-in-a-century pandemic. The twenty-fifth annual History in the Making Conference (HITM) got caught up in actual history in the making.
Among the devastating, almost-uncountable cruelties of the last year, the cancellation of the History in the Making is small potatoes. For those of us on the organizing committee, however, and for those who planned to attend, either to present a paper or hear one, the painful decision to postpone the conference was the first blow dealt by Covid-19. It was the starting point for a long, slow, and incredibly difficult year. Over the last twelve months, by staying indoors, foregoing visits with loved ones, and otherwise shrinking our lives, we have made the unimaginable ordinary. What was commonplace in 2019 is no longer commonplace in 2021. In this foreword, we would like to honour that enormous change and the many difficulties that we have endured and the many sacrifices, both large and small, that we have made, including the cancelation of the 25th History in the Making Conference.
We also want to honour our panelists, who submitted fantastic abstracts and prepared papers and presentations that we eagerly anticipated hearing. If the theme of our conference was the ordinary, their work was anything but. All of our panelists proposed papers that not only drew our attention to the things we all so often overlook, but also interpreted them in creative and imaginative ways. Their topics have in some ways become quite poignant in the wake of the pandemic. Priya Kumar’s wonderful paper on teen culture and shopping malls made us yearn for those vast, air-conditioned spaces where we could choose to be either alone in a crowd or together with friends, enjoying an afternoon of impulse-purchases and food court fries. Lyndon Kirkley’s investigation into medieval suspicion against bakers recalls not only the early-pandemic high of the sourdough craze, or those anxious days where we swabbed at our groceries with anti-bacterial wipes, but also the ways we forget and mistreat the people whose hard work provides for our (literal, in Kirkley’s paper) daily bread. In Teri Rolfson’s excellent analysis of William Hogarth’s portrait of alleged murderess Sarah Malcolm, we discover that instances of public condemnation, concerns around the enactment of justice, and questions of pictorial representation are by no means recent phenomena. Finally, Anne-Marie Shink reminds us so eloquently of the pleasures of falling in love and how the ways we find lasting relationships have changed throughout the ages, even as we are now living through times where some of us have never seen more of our loved ones while, for others, the bonds of intimacy seem ever more tenuous.
The hard work of our panelists did not deserve to run aground on Covid-19. It deserved to be listened to, challenged, discussed, and digested over the course of the conference and in the days and months that followed. To salvage something from the wreckage of last March and to honour the promises that we, the HITM 25 organizing committee, made to our panelists, we present you with this selection of papers. We extend our gratitude to them and to you, the reader. We hope you enjoy these papers as much as we did.
All the best,
History in the Making Organizing Committee, 2020
THÈME - 2020 - THEME
What is Commonplace?: Historicizing the Ordinary
Historical research often focuses on the exceptional. We turn to events that disrupt patterns and overturn previous ways of living and knowing. We attempt to conceptualize coherent beginnings, conclusions, and legacies; we seek to create narratives. Yet lived experiences slip through the gaps in our models of explanation as subjectivities and social structures are constructed within and around ordinary objects, moments and practices. History is made by and expressed through the everyday and the ordinary. If we shift our focus to incorporate these often neglected perspectives, what might we observe in the experiences, practices, and rituals that are embedded in our everyday lives?
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of History in the Making, the Concordia History department annual graduate conference, we are seeking to historicize “the ordinary,” and to interrogate aspects of daily interaction and material culture so often rendered invisible through the cultural construction of their “ordinariness.” What can we learn when we treat these moments and phenomena as integral to the telling of our histories and as objects of historical inquiry in their own right?
Qu’est-ce que le banal?: L’historicisation de l’ordinaire
Les recherches historiques sont souvent centrées sur l’exceptionnel. Elles portent sur des évènements qui bouleversent les modèles établis et qui chamboulent les repères et discours qui auparavant nous permettaient de donner un sens au monde qui nous entoure. Nous tentons alors d’apposer une structure cohérente à ces bouleversements. Nous cherchons des débuts, des conclusions et des héritages; nous tentons de créer des récits. Cependant, nos expériences vécues se faufilent à travers les fissures de ces modèles de conceptualisation du quotidien. C’est alors que nos subjectivités et structures sociales se construisent autour et à travers certains objets, moments et rituels qui forment le quotidien et l’ordinaire. L’Histoire est donc créée et exprimée à travers le quotidien et le banal. Que pourrions-nous observer en incorporant à notre analyse ces perspectives trop souvent négligées qui sont intégrées et qui constituent le quotidien?
En l’honneur du 25e colloque History in the Making du département d’histoire de l’université Concordia, cherche à historiciser “l’ordinaire” et à poser un regard critique sur les interactions et matérialités quotidiennes parfois rendues invisibles par le fait même de leur banalité. Que pourrions-nous apprendre en analysant ces moments et phénomènes en tant que parties intégrales des récits de notre histoire et en tant qu’objets historiques en soi?
ESSAYS
Agency and Ambiguity:
The Representation of Sarah Malcolm by William Hogarth
Terri Rolfson
Abstract:
Laundress Sarah Malcolm was 22 years old when she was convicted of murder and hung, based on the evidence of her bloodied linen clothing. Malcolm vigorously defended her innocence, claiming it was her own menstrual blood that stained the shift. Clean, white linen emerged as a cultural marker of respectability and virtuous moral character in eighteenth century England. Laundresses like Sarah, primarily women and girls of lower rank, conveyed these societal values through their labour. It is deeply ironic that Sarah’s own bloodied linen signalled to the jury not just presumed physical evidence, but an underlying confirmation that her character was as sullied as her linen and capable of committing such a heinous crime.
Terri Rolfson is in the MA Thesis program, Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta. She is researching female laundry labour in eighteenth century England to pursue her scholarly interests of women’s history, material culture and the global textile trade.
It’s a Mall World After All: The Invention of the American Teenager and the Rise of Mall Culture in the Late-Twentieth Century
Priya Kumar
Abstract:
In the mid-twentieth century, shopping malls were designed and built to serve the sparse—although expanding—suburban neighborhoods but quickly became a ubiquitous facet on the American landscape. The ethos of the shopping center was a belief that malls could serve not only the commercial needs of suburbia but also that they could foster a sense of community. This tension between serving public needs and private interests was fundamental to the formation and proliferation of shopping malls. Teenagers in particular exemplified this tension in both their submission to the commercial lure of shopping centers as well as their appropriation of its physical space.
Priya Kumar is a second-year Master of Art student in the Department of History at Concordia University. Her research generally concerns consumerism, popular culture, and
everyday spatial practices with a particular focus on the latter half of the twentieth century.
Tomber amoureux d’une époque à l’autre
Anne-Marie Shink
Abstract:
On dit que c’est une histoire vieille comme le monde : un garçon rencontre une fille et de fil en aiguille ils tombent amoureux. C’est banal l’amour au quotidien, un regard qui
s’échange, des mains qui se frôlent, des sourires qui chavirent et bien qu’il existe de nombreuses variantes, les grandes lignes, elles, sont toujours les mêmes. Malgré les affirmations des amoureux, qui disent que leur histoire est unique, hors de l’ordinaire, la sociologue remarque bien comment les normes sociales influencent les sentiments du cœur et l’expérience que l’on fait de l’amour au quotidien. La vérité est qu’on ne tombe
pas amoureux de n’importe qui, n’importe comment, il y a des codes à respecter, qu’on en soit conscient ou non. De fait, on ne tombe pas amoureux de la même façon d’une époque à l’autre. À travers cette communication, nous verrons quels sont les codes, les normes et les valeurs qui dirigent nos amours dans trois périodes différentes. L’objectif est de démontrer comment la société s’invite même dans nos moments les plus intimes, même dans la banalité du quotidien.
Anne-Marie a fait son BAC et sa maîtrise en sociologie à l’Université de Montréal. Dans le cadre de son mémoire, sous la direction de Barbara Thériault, elle a travaillé sur le mouvement littéraire du 4-Mai en Chine. Ses intérêts de recherches la poussent à poursuivre au doctorat à Concordia sous la direction de Valérie de Courville Nicol. Dans le cadre de sa thèse, elle s’intéresse à la transformation des normes
amoureuses en Occident et à la transmission de ces normes dans les romans d’amour. Elle porte une attention particulière au Québec et la façon dont les normes de l’idéal romantique sont négociées afin de s’adapter à la réalité du XXI e siècle.
The Devil in the Dough: Representations and Perceptions of Bakers in Later Medieval England
Lyndon Kirkley
Abstract:
Bakers in Medieval England do not have a flattering criminal record in the medieval court records of London. Especially during the later medieval period, bakers were often charged with selling underweight bread. Punishment ranged from public shaming to revocation of their licence to bake in London. This project tries to look through the criminal record, and asks if the baker’s world was more mundane, more orderly, efficient, and routine, than the London court records indicate.
Lyndon Kirkley is a history student at the University of Ottawa. His main research interests are Canadian arctic history, ocean governance and policy, and the history of milk production in Ontario. Aside from history, Lyndon is an avid canoeist, musician, and enjoys baking bread at home.
MEET THE ORGANIZERS
Angel
Angel Azzuolo is pursuing a Master of Arts in History at Concordia University. Her interests lie in the power of food memorialization, and the intersections of eating and identity. She previously worked as a professional cook in both Montreal and France, and her current research is inspired by her experiences in the restaurant industry.
Hannah
Hannah Sparwasser Soroka is a first-year MA student in the Department of History. Hannah’s current project examines allegations of cannibalism against Indigenous peoples and Jews in the mid-seventeenth century. Her research interests include early modern intellectual history, Jewish history, and medical history.
Geneviève
Geneviève is an MA student originally from Winnipeg, MB. Her research focuses on the ways Haitians in Montreal are remembering the Trujillo dictatorship, specifically the waves of border-induced violence that took place under his rule and their legacy into today.
Graham
Coming from a background in cultural studies and close to a decade working in Montreal's independent music community, Graham is in the first year of his MA in history at Concordia.
His research looks at the development of private property in the context of settler colonialism in late-18th century Upper Canada.
Meaghan
Meaghan is a second-year MA student in History, working with the School of Irish Studies and member of CAIS (Canadian Association of Irish Studies). Her research focuses on the history of the Great War in Ireland, specifically on the evolution of public memory and centenaries.
Mélissa-Anne
Mélissa-Anne is a graduate student in history at Concordia University. Her research examines the long-lasting impact of twentieth-century British child migrant schemes and child-rescue rhetoric. She focuses on the memory and lived experiences of British migrant children sent to Australia.
Sólveig
Sólveig Hanson is a graduate student in history at Concordia University. Solveig is interested in histories of medicine and representations of science in print and literature. Solveig is currently examining seventeenth-century physicians’ representations and appropriations of vernacular midwifery practices in medical texts.
Teejay
Teejay Bhalla is a first year MA student studying the immigrant artist experience in states seeking independence.
His interests include migration and cultural theory, art history, and cinema. He sits on the executive committee of the GHSA and is a film curator at Cinema Moderne in Montreal.