Update for Congress 2009: “Authority in the Past, Authority of the Past”

Abstract

As we reach another milestone, the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association becomes a little clearer. The inspiring but also terribly difficult process of evaluating proposals and drawing up a program is now complete. The core theme of the CHA meeting seems to have struck a chord and our program is littered with the concept of “authority”.We have an opportunity to open up some exciting discussions about different forms of authority, different practices that lay claim to be “authoritative”, and how we might navigate our archives with a heightened self-awareness regarding both authority in the past and authority of the past. Session and paper titles will signal where some of our discussions might be headed but I also hope the site and timing of our meeting is a dimension of all this.We shall be meeting in very difficult times for so many, both here in Canada and across the world. As some of the pillars of modern authority start to crumble, we historians might want to think about how we got here, but also how the here and now looks in (and at) the mirror of the past. Sitting in a capital city of one of the world’s G8 nation-states perhaps makes these discussions all the more urgent.