Call for Participants: 2025 Canadian History and Environment Summer Symposium

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The 2025 Canadian History and Environment Summer Symposium (CHESS) will be hosted by the Wilson Institute for Canadian History at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. This year’s theme is “Contamination and Rebirth.” The organizers are excited to invite applications from those interested in participating in CHESS 2025, which will run from Friday, May 30 – Sunday, June 1; the weekend immediately preceding the Canadian Historical Association’s annual meeting at George Brown College in Toronto.

We invite applications from graduate students, faculty, and other scholars in the fields of environmental history, historical geography, and the environmental humanities for a weekend of presentations and talks, field research, networking, stand-up comedy, and meals together.

Apply to CHESS 2025

CHESS 2025 aims to provoke discussion and engagement with the topics of environmental change, transformation, contamination, remediation, naturalization, and renewal. Hamilton is an ideal location to explore these important themes in Canadian environmental history. Known as the “Ambitious City” from the mid-19th century, Hamilton’s intense industrial development unfolded alongside a distinct working-class sense of collectivism that helped push for fresh water, clean streets, and stable employment.

Participants at CHESS 2025 will arrive in Hamilton on Friday May 30, for a keynote talk by Dr. Nancy Langston (Michigan Tech) who will consider how extracting, processing, and transporting natural resources impacted the health of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Great Lakes, and the communities that lived on their shores in both Canada and the United States. On Saturday, May 31, participants will spend the day exploring Hamilton Harbour and uncovering various aspects of its environmental history, including Bayfront Park, the centre of Hamilton’s nineteenth-century industrial pollution and now an example of successful environmental remediation; Randle Reef, home to Canada’s largest and most contaminated Great Lakes industrial site; and the Collective Arts Brewery, where participants will be immersed in the social history of Hamilton’s steelworker community. The day will end at Collective Arts Brewery with short stand-up comedy sets from graduate students based on their research. On Sunday, June 1, CHESS will finish in the morning with two workshop seminars related to the conference theme. The first will be a workshop led by John Sandlos, Arn Keeling, and Jessica van Horssen connecting mining history to industrial pollution. The second will celebrate the career of Ken Cruikshank, one of Canada’s preeminent historians of environmental contamination and rebirth. Opportunity to workshop publications relating to the symposium’s themes will also be available.

Space for CHESS 2025 is limited. To apply, please complete the online form by January 30, 2025. All applicants will be notified regarding acceptance by February 15.

The organizers of CHESS 2025 are preparing a SSHRC Connections grant application to help subsidize participants’ costs. We are pleased to announce generous support from the Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE), McMaster University, and the Wilson Institute for Canadian History.

If you have any questions, please email Jessica van Horssen (vanhorsj [@] mcmaster.ca).

Feature image: Hamilton. County Wentworth. 1859. Drawn. by C. S. Rice. Published by Rice & Duncan. Wikimedia Commons

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Jessica van Horssen

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of History at McMaster University m. My research interests are in transnational environmental health and contamination, and I always seek to blend historical research with public engagement. I’m currently a Co-Investigator on the Mining Danger SSHRC Insight Grant, while also developing an augmented natures project. My monograph, A Town Called Asbestos: Environmental Change, Health, and Resilience in a Resource Community was published by UBC Press in 2016.

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