May 31- June 2, 2024 in Bowling Green, Kentucky
We will meet in Bowling Green, Kentucky on the beautiful campus of Western Kentucky University, for a weekend of reflection, work and discussion. We encourage regular attendees to invite friends and colleagues to this meeting, where we will discuss the crucial changes our organization needs to make and work towards a more equitable and transparent Berkshire Conference.
We will also enjoy time together and talk about the planning for the 2026 Big Berks.
Register here
Fees for the Little Berks are $200 for fully-employed members and $100 for contingent faculty and graduate students. Limited subventions are available. The registration fee covers dinners and receptions and entry to all workshops and talks. Breakfasts are included in your hotel and lunch arrangements are on your own.
Hotel Information:
Hyatt Place Bowling Green. Queen rooms $139/night, King rooms $129/night. Book online here.
Travel Information:
The closest airport to Bowling Green is Nashville. The Nashville airport is just over one hour from Bowling Green. We are happy to help arrange ride sharing from the airport for attendees. We were not able to organize a shuttle from the airport. If you are interested in ride sharing from Nashville, please fill out the form here.
Program Information
Friday Roundtable: Challenges for Faculty at Southern Institutions
Shennette Garrett-Scott, Karma Chavez and Julio Capo will discuss their experiences teaching at Southern institutions in our current political and social climate and their suggestions and solutions for navigating teaching, research and activism as a faculty member in the South.
About the speakers:
Shennette Garrett-Scott is committed to recovering and telling little-known stories about African American women’s enterprise, labor, and activism. A historian of gender, race, and capitalism, Dr. Garrett-Scott’s work focuses on African Americans’ quest for economic and social justice. She is an Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies and the Paul and Debra Gibbons Professor at Tulane University; National Director of the Association of Black Women Historians; senior associate editor of the journal LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History; and author of the multiple award-winning book Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal.
Karma R. Chávez is Chair and Bobby and Sherri Patton Professor in the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas – Austin. She is author of Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities (University of Illinois Press, 2013); Palestine on the Air (University of Illinois Press, 2019); and The Borders of AIDS: Race, Quarantine, and Resistance (University of Washington Press, 2021).
Julio Capó, Jr. is Associate Professor of History at Florida International University. He is the award-winning author of the book Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami before 1940 (UNC Press, 2017) and curator of several exhibitions, including Queer Miami: A History of LGBTQ Communities for HistoryMiami Museum. He serves as an associate editor of the Made by History section at TIME.
Saturday Workshop: Writing for Popular Media with Cynthia Greenlee
Scholars often want to contribute to newspaper opinion pages, websites and magazines. But very little about our academic training prepares scholars for the task. Cynthia Greenlee — an intentionally independent historian, award-winning writer and editor for The Guardian — leads this workshop on how to get started from pitching to pitfalls to avoid. Participants should come prepared with an idea for an article and ready to write (and be critiqued) for this hands-on event.
Keynote Address: The Promises and Pitfalls of Public Engagement in the Historical Profession
In this keynote conversation, renowned historian Dr. Keisha N. Blain discusses the crucial role of public engagement within the historical field, with a particular focus on African American history and women’s history. The moderated discussion will consider the promises of public engagement as well as many of the challenges, including the ongoing threats confronting our discipline and profession.
About Dr. Blain
Keisha N. Blain, a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow and Class of 2022 Carnegie Fellow, is one of the most innovative and influential young historians of her generation. She is an award-winning historian of the 20th century United States with broad interests and specializations in African American History, the modern African Diaspora, and Women’s and Gender Studies. She completed a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University and is now a Professor of Africana Studies and History at Brown University. Blain is the author of the highly acclaimed books Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) and Until I am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America (Beacon Press, 2021). She has also edited five collections, including the #1 New York Times Bestseller Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619–2019 (with Ibram X. Kendi). Blain’s latest book, Wake Up America: Black Women on the Future of Democracy (W.W. Norton, 2024), brings together the voices of major progressive Black women politicians, grassroots activists, and intellectuals to offer critical insights on how we can create a more equitable political future.
