As the world adapts to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it becomes impossible not to wonder what new realities will continue to unfold, what future we will embrace, and what past we will seek to recover. In these past two years we have experienced lost employment and newly discovered passions, economic recessions and market booms, the deaths of loved ones and rekindling of lost relationships, unity and social upheaval, confidence and doubt. Where some strive to recover a pre-COVID world, others seek to recover from the ills of pre-COVID society. With the context of our current situation in mind, we invite applicants to engage with the theme of recovery in relation to their fields of research. Our conference aims to explore the promises and pitfalls offered by those who have sought or seek recovery in its varied forms, such as territory, political and economic stability, cultural identities, sacred relics, spirituality, love, health, memories, imagined and real pasts, and much more. Recovery can be a way we bring back a surety of our past, but it can also lead to stagnation, or a rejection of those who found solace in change. Alternatively, recovery can suggest renewal and the overcoming of previous illness. In this sense, recovery is future-oriented and full of possibility. We ask applicants to interrogate recovery’s dual nature and its relationship with past and future, preserving and discovery, normalcy and divergence.

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This year we are celebrating the interdisciplinary character of our department and conference. We are excited to welcome participants from a variety of fields including: History, Classics, Religious Studies, Sociology, Linguistics, Political Science, Indigenous Studies, Economics, Cultural Studies, and Gender Studies.