Ideas, Emotions, and Power: Historians in Conversation
An Undergraduate Research Symposium

The History Department at Mississippi State University invites undergraduate scholars to submit papers for the seventeenth annual Symposium for History Undergraduate Research (SHUR). The symposium will provide students with the opportunity to present their research in the format of an academic history conference and have their work discussed by Mississippi State history professors. The event is scheduled for April 25-26, 2025, on the Mississippi State University campus in Starkville. The keynote address will be delivered on Friday evening, April 25, by Dr. Silke Zoller, Assistant Professor of History at Kennesaw State University. She is the author of To Deter and Punish: Global Collaboration Against Terrorism in the 1970s (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021), which will be available for purchase.

Papers are welcome on any historical topic, but especially those that reflect the Mississippi State University History Department’s nodes of excellence. They are Agricultural, Rural and Environmental History (ARE); War, Power, and International Affairs (WPIA); History of Science and Technology (HOST); and Identity: Gender, Race and Region (RIGR). We also welcome papers that reflect on the interplay of ideas, emotions, and power in shaping historical events and dynamics.

The paper should be based on original research in primary sources. Interested students should submit a proposal or abstract of not more than 400 words, excluding the title, to Dr. Susanna De Stradis and Dr. Alistair Hobson at [email protected] by February 14, 2025.  Students whose papers have been accepted will be notified by February 21, 2025.  The History Department will offset the costs of two nights’ lodging for presenters and provide a BBQ banquet dinner on the Symposium’s opening night.