Maritime History Workshops was founded in 2022 by Drs. Valerie Burton, Meaghan Walker, and Kristof Loockx, in partnership with the Maritime History Archive at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Since that time we have hosted five successful events.
For more information about these events, please click through the titles or make a selection via Past Events.
February 3 & 17, 2022
Exploring British Imperial Crew Agreements was a two-day series of seven talks that explored the projects and potential of the Maritime History Archive. We heard interesting talks from volunteers and academics who are committed to this collection. Topics ranged from the CLIP project that improves the accessibility of the MHA, to topics on medicine, women’s history, material culture, Indigenous history, and medicine.
March 8, 2022
How might researchers better explore primary sources to write post-colonial maritime histories? This roundtable brought together three scholars of British-Asiatic and British-African merchant seafarers to discuss the challenges of finding these workers in British imperial records.
September 2023 to April 2024
Our first monthly meetings encompassing the academic year, this series of workshops with six meetings, four led by workshop attendees, asked emerging scholars to discuss how their work was challenging maritime orthodoxies, whether it was through urbanity, materialism, archival and fictional narratives, indigeneity, environmental studies, or even other disciplines such as anthropology and archaeology.
September 2024 to April 2025
The second workshop series in the academic year 2024-25 focused on bringing six established scholars and others to discuss issues, concerns, and advice with emerging scholars on a range of topics. These discussion sessions featured topics such as grappling with historical arguments, publication, engaging the public, networking, and digital research. These sessions were attended by about 20-30 emerging scholars from the US and Canada, Europe, Israel, and South America.
September 2025 to March 2026
What does it mean to be a maritime historian today? And who gets to be one? Our banner statement triggers a multitude of questions for early career academics. To be mindful of the changing and evolving place of maritime history in contemporary humanities and social science scholarship is to be aware that what was settled years ago is now unsettled. The fall sessions were led by scholars facing changes in the academic and international order; the winter sessions dealt with the shifting focus of maritime scholarship.
Please get in touch if you are interested in working with us to discuss maritime history with emerging scholars. Your message will reach us at infomarworkshops@gmail.com.