Annual Utah State History Conference

The Utah State Historical Society will hold its 67th annual meeting to be held on September 27, 2019, at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City.

The conference theme takes a long view of the interior West. Whereas local and state history tend to build on narrow case studies, we encourage proposals that stretch the temporal dimensions of the past. Special attention will be made to the region’s long human history of prehistoric and indigenous groups and cultures, as informed by oral tradition and the methodology of archaeology and ethnography. Likewise, we welcome studies that incorporate evolving natural processes: the geologic, climatic, and environmental. The theme also lends itself to histories of structural systems, of demographic trends, and of cultural values that span generations.

The long view encourages historians to borrow methodologies and ways of thinking that stretch their subject matter beyond a constricted time frame. Any number of approaches are possible. The theme may prompt some to look at the macro, expanding the scales of their histories by observing patterns and relationships over a broad canvas, while for others it leads to the micro—to longterm forces at play in a particular place or community. Whatever approach is taken, the theme can reveal interconnections among seemingly disparate episodes, new origins in the stories we tell, and historical antecedents in contemporary practices and behaviors.

Join us for workshops, sessions, panels, and a lunchtime keynote address. Registration is free but required.